


cover my skin (Sun-kissed Light)

by Moons-and-Glassware (PorcelainCas)



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bullying, Date Rape Drug/Roofies, F/F, Homophobic Language, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Non-Consensual Kissing, Non-Consensual Touching, Pining Will, Slow Burn, Wallflower!Nico, Whorephobia, asexual nico
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-04-21 03:57:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4814075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PorcelainCas/pseuds/Moons-and-Glassware
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens to Nico at an end of the year after party is not pretty, and he’s left reeling from the emotional scarring. Will Solace helps picks up the pieces when he saves him from the horrifying joke gone wrong.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>Living lives in two places wears my soul too thin.</i></p><p>currently held due to problematic reasons. please read <a href="https://pagelessness.tumblr.com/post/169485956687/spaceklace-heres-the-difference-between-me-a">this</a> for more information on why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Friday

**Author's Note:**

> i actually thought this was going to be a one-shot and MUCH lighter. as of now, i'm unsure how long this will be and how many chapters, but i'm thinking it might be around 15k possibly less. it is a little heavy at the end, will possibly get lighter as the story goes on, but it is unrealistic (and actually can be insulting to some people) for things to go from what i've written to a light happy humorous fic. tags to be added. ivy leagues for ts if you're tired of hearing about the overrated unis/colleges. (holy crap I posted this under the wrong pseud - it's changed now)
> 
> special appearances from kane chronicle characters mainly because they cross over often [and i like that] e.g. Drew Tanaka & Lacy. age differences have been reduced and they are all in the same year/same age. title taken from Magic Man's "Texas". i put 5 chapters, but there might be more or might be less.
> 
> trigger warning for homophobic slurs
> 
> just extra information from one of the tags (please read): [whorephobia](http://iwannabeadored.tumblr.com/post/126117860715/sex-workers-language-and-slurs)
> 
> did some research on date rape drugs. i apologize if it isn't 100% accurate and triggering. (it occurs near the end, feel free to skip)

There are too many people.

Nico isn’t really sure why he had agreed with his best friend Reyna to come to Prom’s after party even though both of them skipped out on the event. Everyone is decked out in the finery that he missed out – flowing dresses and sequins and prim-proper suits. He watches boys pretending to be men adjusting the cuff-links of their uncomfortably worn suits and begin to unravel in the heat of their layers. Unfortunately the person he has his eyes on at the moment turns to meet his stare and the other boy narrows his eyes with hostility.

Nico quickly averts his gaze and walks forward, tagging behind his friend and trying to blend it. However, news of his presence have already caught on amongst the more prejudiced and intolerant students and he can hear whispers of, “What is _he_ doing here?”

A lump rises to his throat and he scratches the inside of his wrist in an attempt to calm himself. “Reyna, I think I should go home. This was a mistake.” He also knows that he can’t bear to see Percy Jackson and his girlfriend Annabeth.

Reyna shoots him dark look and then forcibly drags him by his hand forward. “Nico, it’s your last year of high school. You might as well enjoy yourself. Come on – you’ll probably never see half these people again so go out there and have some fun. I promise it won’t kill you.”

When Reyna talks like that, Nico knows he can’t say no. “Fine,” the boy huffs, letting himself get dragged through someone’s house. The party is just beginning by the looks of it – the lighting had dimmed considerably since he arrived, but people were still walking around and chatting up each other. Everyone appears sober at the moment, and the music is low-key. It feels more like a semi-formal get together rather than something that would evolve into a full-blown don’t-call-the-cops party.

“Good,” Reyna says with a nod and a smile. “Let’s hit the punch first. I need to be slightly tipsy to deal with Piper tonight.”

Nico nods silently in understanding - Reyna had been infatuated with the Cherokee girl since they first met in sophomore year. It hadn’t been pretty when Reyna finally decided to confess in the summer before junior year. Needless to say, Piper balked and the two of them no longer talked since what was dubbed ‘The Incident of Summer ’14’. Within a week of the following school year, Piper had Jason Grace wrapped around her finger and that was that.

He can still remember opening the front door of his house at 1am in the morning to be greeted by Reyna’s tear-streaked face. “Don’t ever fall for straight girls,” she had said over and over again, and they ended up sitting on the couch and watching reruns of Frozen. (Nico got sick of it after the third time.) His half-sister Hazel had yelped in surprise when she came downstairs in the morning to see Nico sprawled face-down on the ground and Reyna hoarsely screaming the lyrics to Let It Go at the TV screen.

They joke about that night now, but Nico knows that he hadn’t learned anything from it when he went and fell for Percy Jackson.

He’s here at the after party right now – Nico had heard murmurs of his name when he was walking through the house. There are so many people here that Nico wonders if it’s even likely they’ll meet, but fate always has a way of finding him.

He pushes that thought out of his head. He went and fell in love with a straight boy and now he has to deal with the consequences. Percy is not his, and he is not Percy’s. There is no reason to be upset if he sees Percy and Annabeth in an intimate position: it is only the natural order of things. Nico is nothing more than the awkward boy everyone suspects is gay but no one has concrete evidence. Or at least no one who cares enough to divulge that information to the group of vultures known as high schoolers.

“I’m not getting a drink,” Nico says when they reach the kitchen. There are fewer people here, but Nico has to avert his eyes from the couple that is making out in the corner by the fridge. Reyna grabs a cup of punch and shrugs at him.

“It’s your loss,” she says before chugging her entire cup and throwing it away. She pauses for a second before giving her report. “Only mildly spiked, but good enough to do the job if I let it sit,” she says in satisfaction. “Are you sure you don’t want some? I mean…Percy…”

Nico’s heart stutters at the mention of his name. “I’ll be fine. I promise,” he says with an attempt smile. It doesn’t really work, but smiling was never his forte.

The two of them head out from the kitchen and back to the living room, or the entrance room, or whatever it is. The house is larger than any residence Nico has ever set foot on. The room is wide enough to easily accommodate a hundred or so people, and the ceilings stretch way up to the second floor balcony. The crystal chandelier casts a warm golden glow through the room, and Nico feels slightly drowsy just from the lighting.

“That William Solace is loaded,” Reyna says when she sees Nico admiring the architecture. “It makes me wonder what kind of jobs his parents have.”

The name sounds vaguely familiar, but Nico can’t help asking, “Who’s William Solace?”

Surprise lights Reyna’s eyes. “He’s in our year. He’s practically a genius – I’m surprised he isn’t already in Med School at this point, but he was the only one to get acceptance into an Ivy League from our school. I don’t know the details, but I heard he got a full ride scholarship.”

Impressive, if not for the fact that Nico doesn’t care much for people like that. It also makes him uncomfortable to hear about people who already had everything set up for the duration of their lives. They are too orderly, too perfect, and too much of conformists for Nico to get along with them. He nods to Reyna’s description but he’s already lost interest.

Reyna is still talking. “But rumour has it that he was caught with a boy in bed a few weeks ago, and now no one knows what to do.” A mocking grin makes its way onto the girl’s lips. “Do you think I should ask him to join the Gay Straight Alliance with us? A third member would be nice.”

“There’s only thirteen days of school left,” Nico points out. “And six of those thirteen business days are dedicated to exams.”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t try,” Reyna argues. “Also having the legendary William on our alumni list of members might make it more appealing to people and can’t hurt our chances. We started this club in junior year and I can count the number of people who have joined with one hand.”

Nico grimaces. “Zero.”

“Exactly that,” Reyna says with a nod. “I’m not telling you to bully him into it. I was thinking that you could talk to him and persuade him a little bit.”

He doesn’t even have time to reply to her when someone calls Reyna’s name. She pauses and narrows her eyes before turning to the voice to find a beautiful girl in an elegantly spun blue dress. Nico knows it’s Piper McLean the minute he sees her, because there’s only one person in the entire school that could pull that dress off so flawlessly. She’s gorgeous – her hair let down and curling prettily around her face and framing her vibrant blue eyes. Her eyes are wide and doe-like, and Nico gets the sense that this is probably a talk that the two of them want in private.

“I’ll be walking around,” Nico says quickly and rushes out of there before Reyna can make him stay. He takes the refined stairs up to the second floor and watches the two of them from the balcony. They’ve moved to a corner of the room, and he can see the back of Reyna’s head as Piper talks to her. He can’t really tell what’s going on. Jason is nowhere to be seen, but it’s unlikely that Piper has had a moment of clarity where she realized she wanted Reyna all along.

He sighs when he realizes that he’ll be guessing all night if he keeps this up and decides to explore the Solace household. He should be calling it a manor really by the size of it. He’s almost sure that there’s a giant pool at the backyard where couples are no doubt skinny dipping.

Leaving the balcony, Nico begins to explore the hallways of the upper floor. He’s already pausing when he encounters a closed door to his right. There are certain kind of noises coming from behind the closed door, and Nico decides that it would be in his best interest to keep moving on.

Eventually he reaches the end of the hallway that opens up into a large room. The plaque above the entrance reads ‘The East Wing’, and Nico is struck again by how elaborate the Solace manor is. William Solace definitely does not need the full ride scholarship to college if he’s living in a home like this.

He had been so astonished by his surroundings that he doesn’t notice that the group of people in the East Wing are all staring at him in a way that indicates that he isn’t welcomed. He’s only startled out of his reverie when someone clears their throat and Nico’s eyes snap over to tuxedo-clad boys and preppy girls in sophisticated dresses and even more complex hairdos. They must have been talking just before Nico came in, but now they have all fallen silent. Anxiety begins to crawl up Nico’s throat and he grimaces a little before turning around to leave.

“Nico Levesque, isn’t it?” a girl’s voice says. Nico turns around slowly to see a blonde haired girl strutting up to him, her heels sounding like a dirge to his ears.

“That’s me,” Nico says, keeping his tone casual. It doesn’t help that the entire group is staring at him with that _look_ like he doesn’t belong and never will, and it makes him feel anxious and lonely inside. “I’ll be leaving now,” he announces to no one in particular, but he doesn’t even have the chance to move before the girl grabs him hard by the wrist, digging her sharp nails into his skin. He holds back a cry of pain.

“Come on, join us. We’re a fun group of people,” the girl says with a wide grin that doesn’t look too inviting. “I’m Beatrice by the way.” She begins to go through a rapid series of introductions, and Nico doesn’t even remember half their names by the time she finishes.

Nico just wants out at this point. Their too saccharine smiles and grins are making him uncomfortable. He can discern that these are the wealthy white kids of the school, and Nico doesn’t fit in this group. The only reason why he’s here is because he’s a source of entertainment.

“Have a drink,” Beatrice insists, and almost dumps the entire content of a swirling clear drink that smells strange down his throat. He hadn’t even had the time to protest and swallows it down unwillingly. It burns as it makes its’ way down his throat.

“So,” the Japanese-British girl Drew begins, pulling Nico’s other arm down so that he’s forced into the empty seat beside hers. “I’m going to be brutal here hon, but are you gay?”

All of them watch him so intently that Nico wonders how he’s gotten himself into this situation. But he should have known – should have known that being suspected of anything but straight would lead to him being paraded around like a freak show. “I can’t answer that,” Nico says, trying to wretch his hands out of Beatrice and Drew’s nails. Drew lets go, but Beatrice only digs her nails in deeper. “That’s painful,” he breaks and says to Beatrice, and that’s when he knows he’s made his mistake.

He should have left from the beginning and ignored all of their sugary words, because Beatrice is looking at him like she’s caught something particularly tasty in her claws and Bryce Lawrence is cracking his knuckles in a way that can’t be casual.

He swallows and is about to tug his hand away but Beatrice lets go. Nico lets out a sigh of relief, but before he can feel any true sense of relief, Beatrice is speaking again in a tone that is far from the sweetness from before. “Oh my God, it’s so true that fags are all pussies.” She laughs loudly, and is joined by several other girls sitting around them, and it’s then when Nico realizes he’s surrounded by the vultures. The language directed at him is startling, and he can’t say he’s used to it, but it is unexpected. “Why don’t we play a little game with him, huh?” she’s asking like he isn’t even here.

Another girl speaks up. “No one _that_ hot can be a _total_ fag.” She eyes Nico in a way that makes him feel like insects are crawling all over him. “I say we make the gay guy straight,” she declares and there’s a noise of agreement from the girls around her.

Nico isn’t stupid – he knows this is going to turn out bad and he’s going to end up blamed for it somehow. He wretches his hand hard enough from Beatrice’s grip that he’s almost sure he’s bleeding. Then he runs straight for the door but is stopped when one of the guys push him forward hard enough that the momentum leaves him to fall hard onto the ground. Before he can even get up, Bryce steps down on his right down hard enough that Nico can’t help letting out a shout of pain. There’s something that sounds like hysterical twisted laughter, and his world narrows down to the people in this room and the door that one of the other boys in the room are slamming shut.

The sound reverberates inside Nico’s chest like the final sound of a coffin closing.

Bryce lifts his foot, but before Nico can even begin to fight back, there are hands all over him and the smell of sweetly sick perfume as some of the girls start to touch him in places he doesn’t want to be touched. “Stop!” he says, pushing hands away and shoving them, but something is off. He’s feeling a little sluggish around the edges, and there’s just something so wrong but he can’t put his finger on it. “Stop,” he says again, but it’s weaker this time and the girls giggle.

Why are there girls here?

There are hands all over him, and he’s not sure what to do except let those hands guide him to a seat. Something is telling him to get out of here, but he doesn’t understand and ends up sitting there and letting those hands roam all over his body.

“You know, I’ve heard that you’re a whore,” someone says, but Nico can’t discern who it is. “Heard that you go out into strip clubs and dance for people. All those disgusting things that fags do, but you’ve really hit the jackpot with us. Don’t you think you can begin to make up for all that shit you did in the past by correcting it with us? We’re here to help you, right girls?”

“Wait,” a high-pitched voice says, and Nico sees the face of the Japanese girl looking at down at him. “Did you _drug_ his drink? What the hell? I thought you said we were just going to mess with him!”

There are other voices too and someone says something, but Nico’s not really sure what they’re saying because suddenly there’s a pair of lips moving against his and hands reaching down to grope at him. It’s wrong – so wrong, but he can barely even let out a sound much less fight back.

Giggles, laughter, and then cool air hitting his chest. He’s shirtless all of sudden, and he needs to get out of here.

He brings his arms up, but it’s a struggle and he weakly pushes at the girl sitting on top of him. The kissing stops and he says, “Stop,” again. She laughs. “Stop. No, no, no. Please stop. Stop.” He’s not sure if he’s saying them out loud or if he’s just repeating it in his mind because she’s kissing him again and there are other slimy lips kissing his body and someone is taking off his pants – no, no, no, no –

Then everything is gone. The pressure, the laughter, the hands, and the lips. But what remains is the sickening phantom touch and lips and the scent of flowery perfume in the air and he needs to get out of here.

Someone is pulling his hand and he unwittingly gets up from his chair and follows despite the fact that he isn’t wearing a shirt and his pants are loose, and he feels like throwing up but he _can’t_. “It’s okay, you’re okay now,” someone is saying, but it might as well be the girls again but he can’t walk away he can’t do anything he can’t.

And he’s lying down on a mattress and someone is saying something but his mind is growing more sluggish by the moment. He blinks his eyes multiple times, trying to fight against the tide, but the last thing he hears is, “It’s going to be okay.”

He has a nightmare about a light-haired girl with mean eyes and sharp nails.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a topic I'm not too used to writing about, so hopefully I can write it accurately without insulting someone. If you have a concern or comment, please bring it up!


	2. Saturday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A deep breath in and then a deep breath out. Nico can hardly breathe with the pressure behind his eyes, in his throat, beating against his chest, and pounding in his head. He didn’t know it could hurt so much without hurting at all until this very moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not gonna lie, I listened to "Terrence Loves You" [Coney Island QUEEN a.k.a lana del rey] the entire chapter. Actually, it's what inspired me to write this instead of something else I planned. (Fell in absolute LOVE with said song the moment I heard it. You might want to listen to it while reading this chapter.)
> 
> If you have concerns about how I'm handling the situation, please raise the issue up. I'm treading cautiously, but mistakes can be made. Comments not regarding concerns are welcomed as well!

“In my own house! In my own house, and I almost let it happen! I want charges pressed against them – NO. They tried to _rape_ him; I don’t care if it was bystanderism or conformity because _they sexually assaulted him._ Yes – I checked. Found remains of it in the cup. …I _am_ calm! I just can’t deal with this right now, okay?”

Nico’s head hurts, to say the least. In reality, it feels like a giant hand has reached down and pinched his head and slowly pushing inwards so that he feels like his head is going to burst into tiny bloody particles. He can hear a distinctly male voice nearby but it sounds distant with an echo-like quality, like he’s underwater. His own limbs refuse to listen to him, drooping uselessly against his sides under the covers of a soft blanket.

He freezes, his eyes opening to be greeted with the sight of an unfamiliar room with high ceilings and too comfortable bedding. Last night’s events replay through his head, and he’s left paralyzed with overwhelming disgust, hatred, and fear. The hands and the voices are long gone, but he can still feel Bryce’s foot on his hand and the taste of some unknown drug on his lips holding his entire body down and rendering him submissive.

After the girls, he’s not sure what happened. He remembers being led away and then lying down on the very same mattress he’s lying on now, but he pulls a blank when he tries to remember what occurred after that.

Bile rises to his throat at the thought of the girls, and his body reacts before his mind can. He sits up on the bed despite the pain in his head and his body, and everything he’s eaten in the past twenty-four hours pushes its way up through his esophagus and out his mouth onto the pristine marble floors.

Someone is saying something to him, but he keeps heaving until only liquid is coming up now. And someone is making pathetic whimpering noises and he’s half certain that it’s him but he can’t admit it to himself. His arms have wrapped around his chest and he’s clutching himself so hard that his nails are biting into his pale skin and then _sharp painted nails, cruel eyes, and mean laughter as hands push him down and he’s screaming for it to stop but he can’t. He can’t._

He’s shivering when he dry retches into the mess he’s made on someone’s floor. His throat burns like someone’s been scraping the dull side of a knife along it. The little panicked exhales and whimpers, he realizes, are indeed coming from his own mouth and he has enough sense to feel embarrassed about it. Since when has he, Nico Levesque, grown into such a ridiculous weakling?

The voice that had been settling in his peripheral hearing comes into full focus now, and Nico is startled when he hears someone speak not for the first time. “Hey, hey – are you all right? What am I saying – do you want me to stay here or do you want some privacy?”

Nico turns his head to the side and sees a man standing there, decked out in a fine white suit that is crumpled in places and speckled with odd stains. His blond hair is a mess like the man has been running his fingers through for hours, and his blue eyes are wide and blood-stained and Nico has no idea what to assess from the situation.

His hands suddenly clench into tight fists, and he wonders if something happened between the both of them in the dark lapse of his memory. His heartbeat feels like the rhythm of the drums in an ominous tune, and he wants to scream but nothing will come out of his throat. The man continues standing at the edge of the bed, too far to touch him but too close for Nico to feel anywhere near safe. He needs to call Reyna right now. He needs to get far away from this place – he needs OUT.

“Stay away from me,” Nico says, finding his voice. His chest soothes over if only slightly when his voice comes out steady and cold like what happened to him hours ago hasn’t bothered him the slightest. “Don’t touch me.”

Nico’s backside doesn’t hurt in a way that indicates the continuation of a horrible night that will surely haunt him for a long time, but he doesn’t trust this man in the fancy white suit. The man’s face crumples in disappointment when Nico shrinks away from him. The slight movement presses the edge of his phone against his rump, and he feels the slightest presence of comfort.

The man puts his hands up in the air in surrender like he’s the victim here, and Nico narrows his eyes in what he hopes is hostility. In reality, he’s frightened out of his mind. He has no idea who this man is, where exactly he is, and what happened in the black period where he was asleep. “I’m not going to hurt you,” the man says quietly before lowering his hands to his sides. His blue eyes are solemn when he looks at him, and Nico can’t help but curling his body up tight toward himself. “I’m going to leave now. If you need me again, I’ll be outside.” He nods slowly before turning around and walking across the spacious but empty room to the door. Nico watches the man open the door to a familiar large hallway and then closing it behind him.

He’s still in the Solace manor, about an hour away from the house he shares with his half-sister and his wayward stepmother. He feels a lump in his throat, and he doesn’t allow himself to make a single noise when he pulls out his phone to see what must be hundreds of text messages and dozens of missed calls from Reyna and Hazel. He tentatively scrolls past the messages without reading them because he knows he’ll start crying when he feels the concern in her texts, and that is going to evolve into full-blown sobs as he recounts his horrible night.

The phantom stab of nails startles him, and he stares down at his right wrist to see that there indeed is dried blood and marks from when he pulled away from that girl. He can’t help dry retching when he thinks about it, and he presses his knuckles hard on his chest over where his heart should be. The feeling in his throat doesn’t go away, and he feels a trickle of tears at the corner of his eyes.

A deep breath in and then a deep breath out. Nico can hardly breathe with the pressure behind his eyes, in his throat, beating against his chest, and pounding in his head. He didn’t know it could hurt so much without hurting at all until this very moment.

Slowly he scrolls all the way down and types the same message to both Hazel and Reyna.

**NICO** _[sent at 11:47am]_

I’m ok.

 

It is so far from the truth that Nico wonders how he can even bear to send it. Before he has time to think of a follow-up text, Hazel calls him. The too cheerful ringtone plays loudly on his phone, and for a second he wants to throw it across the room and scream until his voice becomes nothing.

Nico stares at his phone instead, at the words _Hazel Levesque_ , and his sister’s smiling contact image blown up on the slightly cracked screen of his phone. He lets it ring, once, twice, three times, and then he picks up on the last second.

“Yes?” he asks, his voice strangely calm despite the feeling of wanting to tear apart at every inch of his skin.

“Nico! Thank God you answered! Reyna was so worried – where are you? What have you been doing all night? I know you’re eighteen, but for God’s sake Nico please call home when you stay over late or hook up with someone. I’m not going to judge you, I promise.”

He feels the painless hurt punch its’ way through his chest and he can’t speak. He clutches his phone against his ear, listening mindlessly to Hazel’s babble. No longer hearing the words, he focuses on the inflection and tone of his half-sister’s voice and pretends that she’s right beside him and telling him that everything will be fine. Everything will be absolutely fine.

The tears slip down his cheeks silently, and Nico looks down at the soft white sheets of the bed. He’s wearing his shirt now – that man must have put it back on him, and his jeans are properly buttoned and adjusted now but he feels just as naked as when the drug had infiltrated his system and mind and he was rendered a useless toy for entertainment.

Bad – it feels bad. Hazel is still talking, but he can’t do this anymore. He can’t, he can’t he just can’t. “Please pick me up,” he whispers over the phone in the middle of Hazel’s worried rant. “I’m still at Solace’s house. Please hurry.” He doesn’t even want to hear the response, so he pulls the phone away from his ear and ends the call with a simple press of a button.

His breathing becomes heavier, and then he realizes he’s crying. Both hands reach up to press against his face, and he sobs into his palms as his heart beats _hard_ against his chest and it feels like it’s going to break out of his rib cage and fall onto the floor in a bloody mess of broken tissues and cells. His palms turn into fists, and he scratches them down his cheeks as he sobs – he couldn’t stop himself if he wanted to.

 _You are pathetic_ , the rational part of his mind tells him. He breathes in shakily, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes in an attempt to mitigate his sobs. The immobility of the moment allows himself to breathe in regularly enough to calm down if only slightly.

Getting out of this room is essential. He knows that the strange man with blue eyes is standing outside his door right now for whatever twisted reason he’s come up with. Maybe something did happen between them when Nico was out cold, and he clenches his fists hard enough that his short nails dig into his palms.

His phone is beeping incessantly with messages from Hazel, but he doesn’t read the messages. Pocketing his phone, Nico wraps his arm around himself in the only way he can to feel a little bit safer and steps off of the bed onto the floors, carefully avoiding the mess he made just moments earlier.

There are no windows in this room, and his only choice is to walk through those doors. He’s not sure how he’s going to face the man – he’s not sure whether the man is just another one who took advantage of him or someone who helped him at his weakest. Either way, it doesn’t help how frightened he feels when he walks toward the doors. Reaching one hand out, Nico turns the cold door knob and the world beyond this room opens up to him once again.

True to his word, the man in the white suit is standing outside staring somewhat blankly at the wall. When he sees Nico walk out, he eyes snap over to him and he straightens immediately. His blue eyes are carefully guarded and Nico feels another wave of fear when the man takes a small step forward.

They both freeze, and the man sighs. He looks down at the ground and runs another hand through his mussed up hair, and Nico thinks that he would find him attractive in another life. But right now, he is only thinking _friend or foe?_ The man looks up again and this time Nico is the one who looks away.

“I’m sorry,” he says, but Nico doesn’t know what the man is apologizing for. Perhaps… Perhaps something did happen, and he’s feeling guilty about it hours later. It doesn’t make anything better, and Nico is seconds away from breaking. “You probably don’t know me. I’m Will Solace. I… My family owns this house, and I… I found you last night.” It doesn’t sound promising and Nico doesn’t look up. This is certainly the William Solace that Reyna was telling him about last night, and he is also rumoured to have been caught with a boy in his bed. That thought does nothing to comfort Nico now. The ‘boy in his bed’ might as well have been Nico, but without consent.

It makes him want to run, but his legs won’t move and he’s left staring at the ground while Will talks.

“I…didn’t touch you like they did if that’s what you’re thinking,” he says, but Nico’s not even sure if he believes a single word that comes out of his mouth. “I’m really sorry about what happened. I swear to God if I had known this was what they were planning…”

He trails off and that’s when Nico speaks. “Just leave me alone,” he says, his tone tired and weary, and he knows at this moment that he just wants to lie down and pretend that none of this happened.

“Okay,” Will says, his voice surprisingly soft. When Nico looks up, he notices the other man – boy’s eyes are also looking at him softly like he’s a fragile breakable thing, and he feels slightly comforted and repelled by it at the same time. He is not delicate, and he is not _breakable_ , but after last night he doesn’t know what to think anymore. “Nico Levesque, right?” he asks, but it doesn’t sound like a question.

Nico nods and then hurriedly walks past Will while he can and hopes that the other boy won’t block his path. He’s let through without protest and Nico knows these hallways well enough to locate the grandiose stairs that had looked like such an adventure the night before.

He pauses and then looks down the other side of the hallway all the way down to see the slightly ajar door of the East Wing. Echoes of laughter float into his mind, and he can almost smell the scent of flowery perfume that will no doubt make him throw up every time he catches even a whiff of it in the future.

His hand reaches out to scratch the inside of his left wrist hard and he makes his way down the stairs. When he reaches the main room, he picks up his pace and dashes to the large front doors without even a glance back.

A plethora of feelings fills his heart when he runs out to see that Hazel has just stopped her run-down van in the driveway. Reyna is in the passenger seat, and she opens the window to wave at Nico when she sees him. He runs down the steps to the driveway and nearly trips onto the pavement. When he reaches the car and sits in the backseat, he allows himself to break down into pathetic sobs for the second time of the day.

Reyna and Hazel are saying something in worried tones and asking him questions he doesn’t care about, and he can still see the looming figure of the Solace manor and he NEEDS OUT.

He’s screaming something about needing to get out, needing to get away from here, take him away from here please God if there is any mercy in the world he just needs to go HOME where he’s SAFE and there are no claw-like nails scratching at him touching him in places he DOESN’T WANT to be touched and he can’t do this anymore he can’t hold up the pretense anymore.

The car stops and then the door slides open. Someone touches his back while saying something, and Nico shoves them away so hard that it’s only when he’s bent over the toilet in his bathroom and dry retching hard that he realizes it was only Reyna’s concerned touch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was more difficult to write than the first one. Your thoughts on it would be very nice <3  
> Now that I've thrown myself into the story, I think this could possibly be longer than 15k since I'm heading more descriptive than narrative. I'll try to update regularly but University is slowly beginning to take up very very large chunks of my time.


	3. Sunday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feelings and memories blur together so fast that he doesn’t even have time to disambiguate them. He hears laughter and saccharine words full of threatening promises and smells the sickly sweet perfume that will forever be etched into his memory. It’s so sudden, so _real_ for a second that he jerks back with a loud, “STOP!” that sounds on the verge of a sob, and he knocks his head against the wall in his haste to get away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the lull between this chapter and the previous one, I was also proofreading (multiple, multiple times.) I noticed some continuity errors (that I fixed). One important thing to point out:  
> In ch.2 it says "tiny apartment complex" - that is false. Nico does not live in an apartment. He lives in a house.

They won’t leave him alone. Hazel keeps coming into his room and asking if he’s hungry even though she knows he’s just going to throw it all up within an hour. Reyna doesn’t touch him again, but she sits on the edge of his bed and talks to him about nonsensical things which are only half as reassuring as she thinks they are. What he needs is absolute silence and a moment to himself so he can attempt to patch what’s left of him up inside.

Every time he tries to tell them what happened back at the Solace manor, his throat closes up and he can’t speak. He knows what happened and he won’t deny it because yes it _did_ happen and it happened to him. But talking about it out loud makes it more real, and if he doesn’t talk about it, maybe it can be _less_ real than it really is.

It’s a screwed-up philosophy, but Nico can barely even get out of bed, and he lets Saturday drift slowly by while he lies curled up in his bed under layers and layers of blankets. He’s immobile for more than half of the day, mind focused only on breathing regularly because if he thinks about anything else – he doesn’t know what will happen.

And he wonders if this is how Bianca di Angelo feels every single day.

He pushes the thought of her out of his mind and wraps his blankets tighter around him. He’s been lying prone for so many hours that his back is hurting and his legs are aching to move. His head is pounding, and he feels wrung out from all the crying because he’s just a pathetic waste of space.

This doesn’t happen to boys – that’s the common agreed knowledge that’s shared all over the world, and Nico doesn’t know what to do now that he’s an exception to that silent rule. Does it make him weak? He doesn’t know the answer to that, but he’s almost certain most people would say ‘yes’. It makes him feel even worse than he already does.

The door to his small room opens loudly, and Nico peeks out of his blankets to see that it’s Hazel this time. She’s carrying a bowl and a glass of water, and she sets it carefully down on Nico’s messy desk full of scribbled notes in preparation for exams that felt like the end of his world less than forty-eight hours ago. She then stands there and Nico stares back at her from his layers of blankets.

“Nico,” she begins quietly like he’s a frightened creature. “Do you want to talk about what happened?”

It’s not a matter of want, Nico thinks. He doesn’t want to talk about it to anyone; in fact he would very much like to forget that it ever happened and continue moving forward in life, but he knows that he can’t keep silent forever. He can either shake his head no and Hazel will leave the room, or he can sit up and stop snivelling like he’s given up on living forever.

Nico doesn’t think he’s prepared to toss this in the background like it had been a minor setback, but he doesn’t want to cry about it endlessly. Slowly, Nico pushes himself up in a sitting position so that his back is resting against the bedframe. The blankets are still wrapped protectively around him up to his neck, and he can’t even look Hazel in the eyes when he begins to speak in a croaky voice.

“I… I don’t know how to begin,” he admits quietly. Hazel sits down on the edge of the bed and leans a little closer to hear him. If he speaks any louder he thinks he might cry again.

She offers, “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

It’s easier said than done, but Nico tries. “Reyna and I went to the Prom after party that was being hosted at Solace’s place. We got separated…and –” He can’t say it – not here, not right now. No matter how hard he tries, the words won’t come out. His exhales start to get shorter and he thinks he’s about to hyperventilate.

“It’s okay, Nico,” his half-sister says gently. “You don’t need to tell me everything right now.”

Then she places her hand on his shoulder.

Feelings and memories blur together so fast that he doesn’t even have time to disambiguate them. He hears laughter and saccharine words full of threatening promises and smells the sickly sweet perfume that will forever be etched into his memory. It’s so sudden, so _real_ for a second that he jerks back with a loud, “STOP!” that sounds on the verge of a desperate sob, and he knocks his head against the wall in his haste to get away.

It’s only when he’s curled up under all those blankets on the furthest edge of the bed that he realized what he did. Dread and disgust pool in his stomach, and he doesn’t even know what he can say to Hazel. Instead, he stares at the dark shadows that the blankets provide him until he hears Hazel’s retreating footsteps and then the click of the door closing.

Nico has never been opposed to touch until now. But after Friday night, the pressure of someone’s hand pushing him down makes him feel nauseous. He shudders, grabbing onto the blankets and pulling them toward himself and pressing them against his eyes as he chokes on his quiet sobs.

 

When he pulls himself out of the small space of darkness he’s made himself, his stomach betrays him by whimpering in hunger despite the fact that he doesn’t want to eat anything. He sits up on his bed and stares at the bowl of cold porridge that Hazel had brought in hours ago. In the end, he drinks up the glass of water in one mouthful. Rivulets of water escape down from his lips to splash onto the bedsheets.

Nico puts the glass on the desk, but he misplaces and it shatters onto the ground with a loud sound. It makes him flinch – hand jerking back and protective blankets held closer.

The noise brings both Hazel and Reyna running to his room, wanting to see if Nico’s finally broken from whatever happened to him at that after party. “What’s going on?” Reyna demands the moment she enters the room, pushing past Hazel to get there first. He points at the shattered glass on the floor and their scared expression softens immediately.

“I’ll go get the broom,” Hazel says and leaves the room to the two of them and the gaping silence that follows.

Reyna takes a step forward inside his room and then pauses. Her brows are furrowed and her mouth downturned into a frown. “Nico,” she says in the vocative way that tells him she’s running low on tolerance, “Could you tell us – either of us – what exactly is going on?” It is not unfriendly, but he gets the feeling that withholding the information would not be productive.

He takes a deep breath and searches for the words to continue where he left off with Hazel, but said sister walks back into the room the moment he finds them. The tension in the room dissipates, and Hazel sweep ups the shattered glass on the floor. After she disposes it in the trash can, she turns to look between Reyna on her right near the door and Nico on her left on the bed. He can’t help remembering when her touch had brought back the memories.

Hazel lets out a huff of breath, pushing her hand up her forehead to tug at her curls. “What happened at the party?” she says, turning to look at Nico.

He swallows but the unspoken words worm their way up again. “I was drugged,” he says and he can see the worry and concern appear on their faces immediately but that is not the worse part. “And… A gang of girls wanted to play a sick game.” He looks down in shame and bunches the blanket in his fists. The whole scenario – him – they all sound pathetic now that he’s saying it out loud, but he has to finish it. “They touched me, and I didn’t want to be touched.”

There it is. The whole thing has been summarized in a few sentences, and here Nico was having some sort of breakdown. He feels absolutely pathetic, and he also wants to curl up in a ball and pretend that the world doesn’t exist, that he doesn’t exist.

He doesn’t know what Hazel and Reyna’s expressions are because he has closed his eyes. Nevertheless, the droplets escape under his eyelids and streak slowly down his face. He can’t bear it, so he brings his hands up to wipe them away. When he opens his eyes again, his sight is blurry from the tears.

“I’m sorry Nico, we didn’t know,” Hazel is saying in a tone that makes him sad and angry at the same time. His heart feels torn into two and he wants to go back in time – wants to adamantly tell Reyna that he is never going to that after party – wants to stress about regular things like schools and exams.

Reyna is all business when she hears this news, just like Nico would expect her to be. “Who is it?” she demands, both infuriated and frustrated at the same time. “Do you remember who did it? A name? Description?”

He remembers the ringleader. “Beatrice,” he says, because the rest of them had faded into the background of her copies. “Bryce.” The vicious boy’s mocking laughter and forceful attack still leaves him shaky. “There was a Japanese girl.” _Also William Solace_ , his mind supplements additionally. The boy claimed that he had not touched him, but Nico couldn’t be sure of anything at this point. He can still see the boy’s expression of hurt when Nico told him to stay away and the genuine sound of his words, and the glimpse Nico had that Saturday morning when he overheard the way Will was so righteously _furious_ sounding when he was talking about what happened that night to someone. His mouth clamps shut at his mind’s request. He will not leak William Solace’s name.

Reyna nods slowly, but Nico can tell that she’s gritting her teeth beneath the tight line of her closed lips. Hazel is wringing her hands and biting her lower lip while she looks down at the ground, deep in thought. Nico tries not to scream.

His sister speaks before he can break into tiny pieces in front of them. “Okay,” she says in that soothing voice of hers, and he knows that she’s trying to change the topic to make him more comfortable. “I know a lot has come up…but are you still going to visit Bianca tomorrow?”

The quiet that follows is palpable, and he lets Hazel sweat a bit until he says, “Yes, I am.” Before the party, it had been something he somewhat looked forward to going to but didn’t want to at the same time. Now it felt like a chore but an obligation nonetheless. “I am also going to school,” he adds in afterthought even though the idea of going back to a place where the people who _touched_ him were roaming freely makes him nauseous.

“Nico,” Reyna and Hazel both say together before cutting off. He takes this opportunity to place himself in the conversation.

“I’m going,” he says more firmly this time with confidence that he does not feel. “I have exams. I can’t let this…” He trails off, his faux confidence wavering and then altogether dying like a snuffed flame. He looks at the two of them helplessly and wishes that he weren’t so weak or small. “I need to go,” he finishes feebly.

Hazel and Reyna do not look convinced, but Hazel allows him permission much to Reyna’s chagrin. Nico sighs – in relief or impending fear, he doesn’t know.

“I’ll stay close by tomorrow,” Reyna says, narrowing her eyes at Nico even though they both know they share virtually no classes this final semester. He nods and looks down again, and the two girls leave his room to talk in quiet tones about subjects that he can probably guess correctly about.

He doesn’t like this – being treated like a delicate porcelain doll, but that is how he’s acting right now and that is how they’re choosing to deal with it. He covers his face with his blankets again and his mind jumps to Will Solace. He’s not entirely sure himself why he decided to omit the boy from the few names he has given when he is the easiest to locate out of all of them.

An image of the disarrayed boy appears in his head, and he can see him biting his lips and running his hand through his perfectly styled hair so many times that it can no longer be called perfect anymore. Those too-blue eyes looking up to meet his and then growing soft and attentive and caring at the same time. Maybe he’s just altering his own memories so he can feel slightly safer, but this is how he remembers the other boy. Frightening at first, but…warm, somehow.

He closes his eyes and eventually drifts off to sleep with thoughts of Solace still in his grasp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said University was taking huge chunks of my time? Yeahhh. yeahh about that (more like all my waking hours)
> 
> Updates will come slower, unfortunately - probably around the same amount of time as this chapter. However, comments and suggestions may help me boost my creative juices. :) (Thanks to everyone who's commented/kudo-ed so far <3)
> 
> As an afterthought, my introduction of Bianca is seemingly just there as a placeholder and kind of throws off the universe of Hazel & Nico Levesque instead of Bianca & Nico di Angelo. I don't want to fill up the A/N, so I'll talk more about it next chapter A/N, but Bianca definitely will play a part when I begin talking about the whole picture of Nico Levesque and his family.


	4. Feel Small

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico is paler than usual today under the morning sun, hair stuck messily in some places where he rested his head against his pillow. In the warmth of the early summer, he’s wearing long-sleeves today, unable to even brace himself for the whisper of a breeze against his bare skin. He can say the words ‘I’m fine’ or ‘I’m okay’ as long as he wants, but he knows the truth is far from that. And Will – he doesn’t understand why the other boy is so attentive right now when he can just ignore Nico and pretend that he doesn’t exist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One word to excuse my tardiness: midterms. There will probably be another break before the next chapter of similar length while I try to navigate my way through my classes without failing. However, there's another scene with Will and Nico interaction! No more Will Solace deprivation.
> 
> Anyway, I decided to compile a playlist of songs I've listened to while writing this fic on Spotify. You can click the link [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/deanncas/playlist/5YifnifLzRFVIcPpuccazg) to access it. 
> 
> Homophobia (and biphobia/bi-erasure) in this chapter. TW for mentions of "curing gay" therapy.
> 
> Chapter title from "Uncruel" by House of Lions

When he steps through the doors to his school, he feels as if everyone has suddenly turned to look his way, whisper about him through covered mouths and narrowed eyes. His shoulders curl inward toward himself out of instinct and his hands crawl up to tug on one of the straps of his backpack for comfort. Calm down, he tells himself. Nobody knows what happened. Nobody cares.

He knows he’s wrong when someone he’s never spoken to walks up to him and claps him hard on the shoulder in what is supposed to be a friendly gesture. Nico immediately jerks his shoulder away and turns to face the mysterious person, heart racing in fear.

It’s one of the guys from the football team – he’s never bothered to learn their names anyway. He has never been interested in them, and they’ve all steered clear from him due to rumours about his sexuality. He takes a wide step back from him and says, “Don’t touch me.” His voice comes out calm and icy but he can still feel the edges of panic skimming along his chest.

The other boy laughs and puts his hands in the air in fake surrender. “Dude, chill. No homo,” he says with a laugh, and Nico wants to run right now but he stands his ground. “So did you really bang a room full of girls last Friday night?” Before the information even sinks in, he keeps talking like Nico had already affirmed his answer. “Man, what a score. Who would have known? I always thought you were, you know.” His gestures are vague, and Nico can’t hold back the next words.

“Thought I was what?” he asks, airy and polite but dark at the same time.

He scratches the back of his head and chuckles again. “Whatever man, you know what I was going to say. Stop playing ‘round with me.” He doesn’t reply and lets the tension thicken in the air between them. Then Nico nods, averting his eyes away from him and walks away without another word. The other boy thankfully does not follow nor shout out vulgar praises about the Friday night he wrongly interpreted. His chest is tight with invisible pressure, and he wonders why he even thought it was such a good idea to come back here instead of taking the last days of school off.

When he enters his morning class, nobody turns to look at him and he feels the momentary lightening of his heart. Instead of taking his usual seat at the desk in the front corner of the class, he walks down to the back of the classroom and sits at the corner in the empty seat beside the window. Other students are milling about and chatting about the upcoming finals to their friends or the teacher in the front of the class, but he can no longer dig up any remaining feelings of distress for them. He turns to face the cloudless blue skies and crosses his arms over his chest. A quiet numbness settles inside of him, pulling him between reality and nothingness until a voice rips him back into reality.

He looks up sharply, back hitting the seat hard enough to leave a fleeting burn against his skin. A boy towers in front of him, blue eyes looking down at him and tapping lightly on the desk. “This is my seat,” Will Solace says. It’s not a demand for Nico to move, but rather just a statement. Will runs a hand through his hair and gives him a small smile. “Do you mind if I sit next to you or…?” The unsureness of his voice is strange, but Nico nods his consent.

Nico watches the other boy blatantly as he sits down at the desk beside him. Will looks up and they hold eye-contact for a second before Nico finally tears his eyes away. He had never noticed that he shared the same classes with Will Solace, but then again he was never keen on meeting other people. He doesn’t know what to say to him so he keeps silent and turns his head away to face the window.

Will clears his throat. “I’m sorry about what happened,” he says quietly. He doesn’t have to say what he’s talking about because Nico already knows. His chest tightens and he stares down at the table. “I… I don’t know what I can do to help.”

“Don’t do anything.” The words find their way out of Nico’s mouth. “There’s nothing you can do now.”

Will makes a frustrated noise. “We can find those people and turn them in. It was sexual assault – it doesn’t matter that you’re a boy and that they were mostly girls, okay? We don’t know what we can do until we try,” he says, and Nico looks over and narrows his eyes at the boy.

“Why are you taking this personally?” Nico says, even though he feels a confusion of emotions swirling inside of him at Will’s stubbornness. “It happened at your house and now it’s over.” It’s not over, not really, but if Nico says it enough times maybe it will become true. If he thinks too long then he’ll start feeling the unwelcomed lips against his once again. He still has bruises on the back of his hand from their accomplice, Bryce. “There’s nothing left to do.” Even with the words coming out of his mouth, he wonders why he wishes so badly that he _could_ do something to erase the feeling of fear crawling up his skin every time someone touches him now. “Why do you even care?”

He says nothing, blue eyes that were so fierce is now passive when he averts his eyes to look away from Nico. “I don’t know,” he says, but Nico gets the feeling that he does know and is keeping the answer away from him for some reason. “It happened at my house, so I guess I feel responsible.” The last words are mumbled.

“I’m eighteen, and I’m not your responsibility,” he cuts in. He feels small – just a burden, a bothersome little boy who couldn’t take care of himself. “I don’t need your pity. I’m fine.” The last bit is unnecessary but he says it anyway. Will immediately looks up at him when he hears those words, and he knows it was the wrong thing to say. Anyone looking at him can see right through those words.

Nico is paler than usual today under the morning sun, hair stuck messily in some places where he rested his head against his pillow. In the warmth of the early summer, he’s wearing long-sleeves today, unable to even brace himself for the whisper of a breeze against his bare skin. He can say the words ‘I’m fine’ or ‘I’m okay’ as long as he wants, but he knows the truth is far from that. And Will – he doesn’t understand why the other boy is so attentive right now when he can just ignore Nico and pretend that he doesn’t exist.

“I don’t think you’re ‘fine’,” Will says after a moment of hesitant silence. The bluntness of his words startles Nico. “Look, what happened to you shouldn’t have happened in the first place, and I should have been able to stop it.” He lets out a huff and runs his fingers through his hair and Nico wants to tell him that it’s not his fault. “Could you let me help you, please?” he asks, eyes searching Nico’s and a look of helpless guilt written all over his face.

The words ‘I don’t need help’ is just on the tip of his tongue but instead he finds himself nodding once, just a dip of the head. A smile breaks across Will’s face, lips curling upwards in a way that makes Nico feel like the sun is breaking out of the clouds. “Thank you,” Will says.

“There’s nothing to thank me for,” Nico says quietly, not quite understanding why Will cares so much about a nobody like him, even if the horrible incident occurred at his house. “I just want to be able to forget it ever happened.” His hands clench and the repressed image of the girl’s wicked grin appears in his mind again before he manages to shove it down.

The other boy can’t find the words to reply to that, and Nico turns to face the front of the class and pretend to be interested in whatever the teacher is saying for the duration of the class. When the class is over in the next hour, Nico is the first one out of the classroom.

 

He sits beside Reyna during lunch in the field outside of the school under the bleachers. Reyna was the first person here and had glared at any couples who had wandered into the area hoping for a quick rendezvous. “Leave,” she had demanded each time in multiple different ways depending on how insistent the couple was.

“You didn’t need to do that,” Nico says after she’s scared away the fifth couple that day. “We could have found a different place to eat.”

Reyna shakes her head. “They can deal with it,” she says. They’re sitting a small distance away from each other – not too close to trigger Nico but not too far away to make him feel anxious and alone either. “So how was class today?” It’s all small talk and pretend, but Nico knows that she’s worried out of her mind for him.

“It was okay,” he says vaguely. “William Solace talked to me this morning.”

He can see the confusion on her face and then a flare of anger before she’s neutral again. “Why?” she asks. She has her own opinions for why he spoke to him, but she opens it up to Nico first.

He shrugs and looks down at his crossed legs. “I don’t know,” he admits. “He said he was sorry about what happened.” There’s more to it – something about the way he looked at him and the desperate way he wanted to help out Nico in whatever way he can. He doesn’t know how to describe it so he leaves it unspoken. Maybe he’s just imagining things – wanting comfort in the person who stopped what could have resulted in non-consensual sex.

“That’s ridiculous,” Reyna says. “I bet he just doesn’t want his image tarnished. Keep the little ones quiet and happy so they won’t report him for anything. A criminal record might be what kicks him out of those Ivy Leagues he wants so much.”

It’s a harsh assessment, and Nico would disagree but neither of them has enough evidence to either prove or disprove each other so he remains silent. She’s angry, and she wants to do something about it, and the only name that she can think of right now is William Solace.

She pauses in the middle of her rant and then looks at Nico. “How do you know him?” she questions.

He forgot that he hadn’t told her or Hazel that detail. “He… He found me,” Nico says, struggling to think of a way to say it. “I think he stopped those girls.” He’s almost certain that Will had stopped them, but then again he was heavily drugged at the time and has no idea exactly what happened. However, he doesn’t think that Will took advantage of him.

Apparently Reyna is not as trusting. “Did he do anything to you after that?” she demands.

“I don’t think so.” To his own ears, he sounds unsure and small.

She breathes in deeply and then breathes out and he knows that she thinks that something happened in the lapse of time. He doesn’t blame her for thinking so. Neither of them knew Will Solace very well, and recent rumours also indicated that he might be into men. “I’m sorry for dragging you to that party,” she finally says.

“It’s not your fault,” Nico replies, repeating the same thought he had in his mind when Will talked to him. He doesn’t understand why everyone thinks it was their fault, but maybe it is human nature to want to blame something bad that happened. “Don’t blame yourself for it.”

Reyna digs around in her backpack and then pulls out a folder. “Whether or not it’s my fault, I’m looking for the people you’re talking about. There’s no one named Beatrice in this school,” she says, biting her lip while she opens the folder. He sees notes in her neat handwriting and black and white printed photos of some faces. “But I found Bryce, and there are a number of Japanese girls. Could you look through it and tell me which one is the girl you saw that night?”

He has no idea how she had managed to get all this information in less than twenty-four hours, but he doesn’t question it. He takes the folder in the hands and then looks through the few pages filled with printed internet pictures of girls in their school. He pauses on the photo of the girl making a duckface, hair styled in perfectly curled ringlets and lipstick so vibrantly perfect that he can almost see the colour. “This one,” he says, pointing to her. If he thinks back hard enough, he thinks he remembers her telling the other girls to stop at one point, but he’s not sure.

When he turns the folder back to Reyna, she stares at the photo in shock. “ _Drew Tanaka_?” she murmurs in shock.

“You know her?” Nico asks, trying to keep his tone casual but he can feel the telltale hard thump of his heart as panic slowly begins to settle in. What if this girl and Reyna are friends or good acquaintances? Would that mean that she would start saying that Nico made the incident up for attention? He curls his fingers and grabs the hem of his shirt, staring down at the ground.

“Not really,” she says. “But Piper does.” Before Nico can begin to truly panic, Reyna explains. “Jason broke up with Piper last month for Drew. She told me at the party.” Her words are careful like she’s hiding something, and Nico would usually ask for more information but he doesn’t have the curiosity or energy at the moment. He focuses on calming down his heart enough to breathe normally again.

“Oh.” It is more of an exhale than a word.

“Piper told me that Drew is used to getting what she wants in any way possible.” Reyna’s lips tug up for a second before her expression is all business again. “You think that it was her?”

“I know that it was her,” Nico confirms. “But… I think she was against what was happening after she found out her friends put something in that drink.”

Reyna nods slowly. “Okay.” She takes out a pen and circles Drew’s picture and then writes something in bold letters beside it before closing the folder. “But I’m still wondering – are you sure that girl’s name was Beatrice?” When he affirms this, she frowns. “I know the student body is large here, but I’ve checked the records multiple times. There’s no one named Beatrice here.”

He feels fear crawl into his heart once again. Does she think he’s lying? “I don’t know,” he says, looking away from her. “She said her name was Beatrice. Maybe she wasn’t telling the truth,” he says, wishing desperately that he can convince Reyna that what happened _did_ happen and that he’s not making this up.

They’ve been friends long enough that Reyna can tell when Nico is panicking. “Hey, it’s okay,” she tells him, looking directly into his eyes. “I believe you. Maybe she’s homeschooled or something. But you said Will has been talking to you – maybe he can tell you who she is if he really is sorry about what happened.” Before he can reply, she checks the time on her phone and swears. “I have class in a few minutes,” she says.

“I have a spare,” he says. He knows she’s about to invite him to sit in on her class but he doesn’t want to be contained in a classroom with other faces that have probably heard the untrue rumours about him and the girls that Friday. “I’ll be fine on my own.”

“Okay, I’ll see you after school,” Reyna says and waves a quick goodbye to him when she leaves. He waves back and then sits in the silence for a few seconds before he pulls out his headphones and blasts music loudly in an attempt to drown out his thoughts.

His hands ache to do something but he doesn’t know what, and when a few girls wander into the space behind the bleachers to gossip loudly about something, Nico turns off his music and begin to pack up his bags to leave. He’s a safe distance away from them so they wouldn’t see him unless he brought attention to himself, but he doesn’t want to stay here any longer now that there are other people here.

“…at Solace’s place…”

He pauses and then tugs his headphones down so he can hear them more clearly, his heart pounding against his ribcage.

“Ugh, that’s disgusting,” one of the girls says. “I _hate_ when boys brag about banging multiple girls the same night. Not only is it disgusting and immorally wrong, it’s also pretty pathetic.”

“That’s not all!” another girl interrupts. “I heard that Levesque guy also hooked up with Solace.”

There’s a plethora of revolted noises when they hear that news, and Nico thinks he’s going to throw up right now, but still he stays.

“He _totally_ took advantage of Solace, IMO!” someone says. “I mean you hear this rumour that Solace is gay, which is kind of gross, but like his problem. He can always pay for gay therapy with the money he has.” There are giggles and sounds of agreement. “I bet Levesque just wanted to say that along with girls he also had sex with a rich guy. What a desperate whore.”

“Now that I think of it – that sounds like him. He was also kind of…freaky anyways.” They laugh, and Nico feels even worse than he did in the morning when he was approached by one of the guys who always used to avoid him.

“But I don’t think Nico’s gay!” the fourth girl declares. “I think that part is a rumour and the first part is true. I mean you don’t have sex with a bunch of girls and then have sex with a guy. It’s one or the other! Like you can’t be _split_ in between the two. That’s just dumb and ridiculous.”

“Whatever, the idea of Solace and Levesque together is gross enough in itself,” the first girl says. Nico decides to leave at this moment, not wanting to spend another moment listening to the four of them spout homophobic rants.

He manages to escape undiscovered and heads across the field with his head down toward the school. His eyes are wet but he’s not crying. He brings his hands up and uses the edges of his long-sleeved shirt to rub away the water before he continues walking.

 

Will is in his last period class, and Nico automatically walks over to him before he thinks about the comments that those girls made. He pauses and then sits at the first empty desk that he finds. It doesn’t help that Will is talking up pretty girls in sundresses and also surrounded by smug-looking boys who are dressed in a way that screams of money.

He can hear Will talking good-naturedly with the others and laughing at all the right moments, and he’s reminded of the different worlds that they come from. Up until Friday, he had no idea who Will was and didn’t bother to find out. There’s a reason why he had never interacted with him until now despite being in some of the same classes in school. He turns around to look briefly at Will talking animatedly to one of the girls who are laughing along with whatever joke he’s making. He accidentally catches the eye of the boy sitting next to Will whose smile turns into a scowl when he sees Nico looking. He immediately turns to look back at the front of the classroom, a lonely gap yawning open in his heart.

It’s then that he thinks that Will feels obligated to be ‘responsible’ for what happened. He doesn’t care about Nico and the thought makes his heart sink, the loneliness gaping wider by the second. Reyna is right – Will must only care about his image. Nico is nobody compared to the people he surrounds himself with, so why had he even begun to put Will on a pedestal? Once this whole thing blows over, William Solace will forget his name and the fact that he ever existed.

For some reason, Nico's eyes turn to Percy sitting in the front of the classroom with Annabeth to his right. The seat to his left where Nico usually sits is empty and he thinks it’s strange how some things remain the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for all the kudos and comments so far <3 I'm pleasantly surprised by the reception!
> 
> I really hope I can get the next chapter out soon. Meanwhile feel free to listen to the playlist and imagine what the next chapters could contain lol
> 
> About the Levesque/di Angelo choices - the basic answer is that I wanted to change it up a bit. Different families begets different personalities. (Yes...I totally did steal that from Supernatural. Winchester versus Wesson & Smith [especially Smith]) You can see Nico's personality in this fic does not reflect him EXACTLY from the book, and that's because of different experiences growing up.
> 
> Also...if you're Canadian, go vote in the federal elections on Oct. 19 if you're eligible! (Stop those Conservatives!)


	5. Strange that You’re not Here with Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Surprisingly, it evokes a laugh from Will even though it isn’t supposed to be funny. Their eyes meet again and Nico finds himself cracking a grin and then they’re both laughing, and for a second everything feels like it can be all right again. Maybe after the next week this will all blow off and they can both go back to living their separate lives and forget that anything ever happened that Friday night. 
> 
> But that’s not how it works.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I seriously not updated for almost a month? It only felt like a few days. Time flies when...you always have a new paper or test to write lol
> 
> I wrote this at 2am. Edits have been made, but there may still be a few errors that have slipped by.
> 
> Chapter title from: "Terrence Loves You" by Lana Del Rey

When Nico closes his locker and hikes his bag over his shoulder, he’s confronted by the people whom Will had been sitting with in his last class. He frowns but doesn’t try to push past them in an attempt to get away. “Hi,” he says, hand reaching to scratch the inside of his right wrist hard.

He can see the dark bob of Reyna’s head far behind them in the hallway, talking to someone else. She can’t see what’s going on now; he’s on his own.

“What’s up with you and Will?” one of the girls wearing shorts is saying with her arms crossed. His eyes trail down to look at her long pink nails and he involuntarily takes a step back, the cold mindless fear trying to slam against him once again.

He shakes himself out of it and sees that she’s frowning at him. “What do you mean?” he asks, keeping his tone neutral and calm. Maybe if he seems uninterested enough then they will think there is no reason to be hounding him like this.

“You know what we’re talking about. Don’t make us spell it out,” the guy who had glared at Nico in class says.

In all honesty, Nico does not know what they are talking about nor does he want to find out. He shakes his head. “I’m afraid I can’t understand cryptic language,” he says a little too dryly for his own good. “But I can promise you that William and I do not talk, and we’re also not going to be friends any time soon.” He feels a little bolder and more scared at the same time, and he decides to take his chances in the open school hallway where everyone can see them. “Excuse me,” he says, nudging past Will’s friends and leaving them behind.

He should have expected it.

He feels the telltale seizing up of his own muscles in defense before rough hands grab the back of his shirt and yanks him backward into the group of angry friends wanting to tear into his skin for even daring to look at Will Solace much less speak to him. He’s pulled roughly enough that the collar of his shirt chokes him when he’s thrown against the lockers – the back of his head hitting it hard enough to create a sound that draws attention from nearby students who then decide to suddenly find interest in Nico. His mind blanks, and then it happens again. No, no _please. I don’t want this. Stop. STOP._

But this time he completely freezes, staring at the icy blueness that burns into him.

“We asked you a question,” the person who pulled him back in demands. “Maybe if you stop running away from them, people will stop _assuming_ things,” he sneers, disgust apparent in his voice. He doesn’t say the words, but he has a way with saying something without saying it and for some reason this is much worse than the spoken words. Nico opens his mouth and then closes it, wanting so badly to muster up courage he does not have and then march out of here. He cannot even tear his eyes away from the pale boy in front of him, mentally rather than physically holding him against the lockers. Something churns in his stomach and there is a lump in his throat – he feels like he’s being stripped of any sense of security and left bare for them to poke at his ruined flesh.

He wants to glare right into the ice-chipped eyes and tell him crudely to go away, but it feels like his heart is pounding against his throat and he’s afraid that he might throw up if he opens his mouth. Instead, he grips onto his inner wrist, scratching his nail down harshly enough tear at the first layer of his dead skin.

There is a dull ringing in his ears, and he thinks perhaps if he just takes a deep breath and begins to walk away then this will resolve itself within a matter of seconds. But someone is saying something, and cold fingers grip onto his hand. The ringing stops, and his entire body clenches up. The pale blond boy in front of him is saying something, and for some reason, he looks eerily similar to Will. His lips are moving and his eyes are narrowed with hostility, but Nico cannot bring himself to wrench his hand away from the invasive cold touch.

And then he is gone, icy hands torn away and Nico sucks in a deep breath, only just aware that he hadn’t been breathing. The inertia fades, and Nico is left standing in the hallway while unfamiliar faces surround him, judging him for things he can’t control.

He wraps his arms around himself, desperately trying to regain warmth again but the touch has made itself persistent – seeping through his skin and into his bones. He needs to walk away from this while he has the chance before it gets worse, but when he looks up, the same blue eyes are staring back at him. He shrinks back automatically before realizing that it is not the same person who had been taunting him.

“Nico? Hey, it’s okay now,” he’s saying, blue eyes dark with worry. He notices the crowd of people are slowly being to shuffle away but aren’t making it far. “Octavian isn’t going to bother you anymore, okay? God, I’m so –”

Reyna’s voice could have been heard on the other end of the hall, and they both look up when they hear her demanding tone. “ _What the_ hell _do you think you’re doing,_ Solace?”

And now, only now does Nico feel his heart soothe over. She storms down the hallway, covering three steps in only one, dark eyes narrowed in on Will and his gaggle of friends who have stuck around to watch the freak show.

“I’m not doing anything,” Will defends himself, turning away from him to face Reyna. “I’m just trying to help –”

“You have already done enough damage,” Reyna says, stopping just a few feet away from Will. Her tone is quiet, but the dark rage in her voice speaks tones more than volume ever could. “Nobody _needs_ your help, so stop _forcing_ it on people.”

Will doesn’t say anything else, but Nico can see the set expression of his jaw and he knows that if this doesn’t stop, then unwanted and misunderstood drama will splatter their entrails all over the school hallways.

“Reyna,” Nico begins, but his voice fails him and it is completely drowned out when Reyna makes her accusation based on blind anger in a hallway where all eyes and ears have narrowed in on them.

“I thought you were an okay person until I found out what you and your friends did to Nico that Friday night. And yes, it’s still assault even if you didn’t go all the way.”

“Reyna, no. That’s not what happened –,” but Nico is completely cut off by the sudden roar of chatter that explodes rather than diffuses through the filled up space. Reyna gives him a pained look – torn between apologizing and the hardened expression of excusing this as something ‘the world needs to know’. These accusations are heavy, and he doesn’t know how to feel about them – he clearly, very clearly, told her that Will Solace was not a ringleader in the orchestrated event, so he doesn’t understand why she is piling this on him. Nico’s not naïve – he knows that something could have happened between the time Will stole him away from the girls and when he woke up. He could have easily taken him in that bed and Nico would have been none the wiser – but something’s not right about that story.

He thinks he can see teachers in the background walking toward them, and he knows this is beyond salvaging in the chaos that had followed Reyna’s words. He wants to be angry with her, but he can’t even muster the energy, so instead he looks at Will. Their eyes meet and Will looks away; it easily can be interpreted as guilt but there is just something so tired and weary in his eyes. Before he can think better of his actions, he tugs onto Will’s sleeve and pulls him through the doors into the stairway. He hears Reyna shout his name, but she’s drowned out by the nonsensical prattle of enthusiastic vultures, and the door slams shut, dragging the two of them into the silence of the muffled buzz.

His hand falls to his side and he doesn’t even look at Will before he takes the stairs to an alternative route to an exit. He hears the telltale shuffle of footsteps signifying that Will is following him quietly.

It is a quiet walk but they reach the back exit that is blissfully free of students. He has no doubt that phones are going off with messages of the accusation Reyna threw at Will. In the back of his mind, he wonders if someone video-taped it on their phones. He stops when he’s standing outside of the door, soaking in the warm sunlight and ridding himself of the freezing feeling from Octavian’s hands.

“Nothing happened between us when you were passed out, I swear,” Will blurts out, and Nico looks over to see the blond boy wringing his hands. “I would _never_ do something like that – I don’t know why your friend doesn’t believe me – oh God, I promise that I would never hurt you like that.” He’s beginning to babble, and he stops Will by holding his palm up before he goes any further.

“Maybe it’s stupid of me to say this, but I don’t think you’re the kind of person who would take advantage of me like that.” The moment that it leaves his lips, he realizes that it does sound utterly stupid, and he throws in something else just to fix up his statement. “You’re not even gay.” The add-on sounds more forced than he expected it to be and a self-deprecating laugh bubbles up for a second before dying before it even escapes his throat.

It’s quiet between then and Nico sneaks a look at the other boy who is looking at the distance pensively. “Yeah,” Will says noncommittally. “I just – I’m sorry. I know you wanted to keep this quiet and now the whole school knows and I don’t even know what’s going to happen.”

“I’ll put in a good word for you if you feel like your scholarship to Harvard is at risk,” Nico says dryly. “But they’ll have to decide whether I have the Stockholm syndrome or not first.”

Surprisingly, it evokes a laugh from Will even though it isn’t supposed to be funny. Their eyes meet again and Nico finds himself cracking a grin and then they’re both laughing, and for a second everything feels like it can be all right again. Maybe after the next week this will all blow off and they can both go back to living their separate lives and forget that anything ever happened that Friday night.

But that’s not how it works.

Their laughter dies off, silence falls over the two of them, and they cast their eyes away from each other. “It’s not that,” Will says quietly. “To be honest, I don’t really care about whatever reputation I have: both in academia and socially. I just want… No one’s taking this seriously, okay? And yeah, I know your friend is latching onto whatever she can attack: it's part of human nature to find something to blame. I feel like…everything is dissolving. Like everyone wants to point fingers and then go home.”

“That’s exactly what Reyna wants to do, and I’m sorry that she called you out,” Nico says.

Will lets out a frustrated sigh. “But that shouldn’t be the _point_. Yes, I think the people who did that should be sought and charged, but it shouldn’t be _only_ about them. It’s also about you and what you went through, and everyone is treating that like it’s not as important.” He turns his eyes onto Nico. “I don’t want to assume your mental health because I don’t know anything about it, but just…take care of yourself, please?”

The pleading strikes a chord within him and he wonders just what Will is trying to do. There’s something trembling inside of him at those words, and he has to look away from him before he speaks. “Okay,” he says, unable to find any other acceptable reply.

“So is this you letting me help you?” Will asks, bringing up the question from the morning. “I know I was being forceful earlier… But if you want me to go away, then tell me, and I’ll leave you alone.” There’s reluctance behind those last words, but Nico feels a little bit lighter when he realizes that Will is consciously presenting him with choice when everyone else had been denying it from him within the past few days.

“Well I’ll have to think about that,” Nico says, feigning thoughtful seriousness. He sees the way that Will’s expression drops and then rectifies his statement. “I’m only joking. It would be nice to talk to someone who isn’t hounding me at all times.” He thinks of Hazel’s permanently worried expression, like she thinks he’s so fragile that he’ll break with a single touch. Admittedly, he has let himself become a victim to those pitfalls, but he wants to be treated like a capable human being, not delicate glass to be stored away. “That’s a yes,” he clarifies.

Will smiles brightly – all relief, and happiness, and something else that Nico can’t pinpoint. “I’ll give you my number. If you need to talk about something, just text me.” He’s a little eager sounding and he notices that Nico sees this. “It’s confidential – I promise I won’t tell anyone. If I do – I give you full permission to sue the hell out of me,” he offers.

“Are you my therapist or something?” Nico is asking out of humour when he hands his phone over to him.

“Hopes set on being a doctor,” he says while he puts his contact into the phone. “Stereotypical, I know, but it’s kind of my passion. I know – it’s weird for an eighteen year old.” He shrugs and looks away, seeming a little self-conscious.

“I like this,” Nico blurts out without any preamble. His heart jumps at his own sudden declaration, and he feels daft but continues anyway. “I like talking to you. It makes me feel… _real_ again.” He doesn’t go on, but he knows that Will understands him when he sees the other boy’s thoughtful expression.

Before either of them can get in another word, he hears the high-pitch honk of a car and he turns to look at the street to see a Hazel’s car. He’s not surprised to see Reyna in the passenger seat.

“Looks like you need to go,” Will said, stiff sounding probably because he’s seen Reyna. “See you next time.”

Nico doesn’t even say goodbye or turn back, unsure of how he feels now. The past few minutes with Will had left him feeling all right again, but now he’s being faced with Reyna, and he can only think about what she said in the hallway in front of other students just earlier.

When he gets into the backseat of the car, Reyna is the first one to start talking. “What were you doing with William?” Her voice is cool and controlled.

“I didn’t know you became my mother over the past hour,” Nico replies in an equally cold tone, and he realizes just how pissed off he is at Reyna for throwing Will under the bus in front of all those people. “And Will didn’t do anything.”

“So you’re going to believe everything he says now,” Reyna scoffs. “Has it ever occurred to you that he could be brainwashing you?”

There is truth in her words, and a part of Nico can understand but then again another part of him simply cannot. “Oh? So where were _you_ when I was almost – almost raped?” He doesn’t like the way that the word sounds so casual when spoken out loud but was so difficult to get out in words. “Were you there to pull them off me? Or were you the one who was downstairs flirting with a girl who _doesn’t even want you_? Get over yourself.”

He’s going too far, and he can almost hear the click of Reyna’s teeth when she snaps her mouth close. She doesn’t say anything and a silence elapses in the car.

“Let’s talk about this later,” Hazel finally says from the driver’s seat, having been a bystander in the argument so far. “We’re going to see Bianca today, so let’s just focus on that right now,” she says in an attempt to play the peacemaker.

Neither Reyna nor Nico are happy with this, but they let it slide by in the tension-filled silence that follows.

 

They have been sitting quietly in the waiting room for the past few minutes. Hazel’s efforts at small talk yields next to no results from the two of them. Finally, the torture is over and someone calls them over to the reception desk. Nico is the first one there to accept a makeshift nametag from the tired receptionist.

“One at a time. Twenty minutes is the maximum per person,” she recites before directing them over to the room number they were assigned to.

“Nico, how about you go first,” Hazel offers kindly, even though all three of them know that this visit holds the most significance to him.

He doesn’t reply, but he’s the first one to enter the room when they reach the door.

A dark-haired woman sits on one of the plush couches while a nurse stands off to the side. The nurse smiles at Nico when he enters. “Looks like your brother is here,” the nurse says kindly to the woman. “I’ll be in the nice room. Just press the button on the side of the couch if you need me.” With that, the nurse leaves and the two of them are left alone.

It’s been almost a year since Nico’s seen her, and he has no idea what to say. She looks exactly the same as last time – dressed in all white, dark-haired luscious and pulled into a neat braid. Her eyes are bright, and she’s smiling. “Nico!” she says happily. Standing up, she walks over to him and gives him a big hug and he fights the learned urge to push her away. Instead, he focuses on her clinical scent, blocking out the smell of flowery perfume. “How long has it been?” she says when she pulls out of the hug to look at him.

“It’s great,” he lies and manages to smile back. There’s something so wrong about lying to her like this, and he wants to break down in front of her and tell her all that’s happened within the past few days. He wants her to comfort him like the times she did when he was a child, soothing a hand down his back and telling him that he’s going to be okay. For a second, he really is about to lose it and tell her what’s really going on, but then she begins speaking and he realizes his circumstances.

“You’d never guess what happened this week,” Bianca begins excitedly, eyes alight with enthusiasm. “I found an abandoned wolf pup when the Hunters were up north for some investigation into the Laistrygonians’ current activities. Artemis let me keep her.”

She holds up a small blue pillow in her hand and coos at it. “Isn’t she cute? I know you have a weakness for these things.”

A part of Nico wants to scream – there has been no progress from before. The doctors promised him – they swore that she would be better soon last time. Instead of screaming, he forces a smile and then pets the pillow. “That’s great,” he says with less enthusiasm than he had hoped, but Bianca doesn’t notice. She stares down at the pillow with an enamored expression.

Nico watches silently. He doesn’t remember when it began, but Bianca had started having delusions sometime before he turned eight. He’s not one hundred percent sure what happened, but he knows it was something bad enough for Bianca to repress her memories enough to fabricate an entire world around her. At least, that’s what the doctors have told him every time he asked about her condition. The air feels colder all of a sudden, and he wonders if he’ll be exactly like Bianca if he can’t handle the thought of what happened to him on Friday anymore.

It’s Bianca’s voice that pulls him out of the train wreck his thoughts are heading for. “You don’t look so well, Nico,” she finally says, looking at him in concern. He’s jolted out of his thoughts, suddenly alarmed that she’s noticed. When she’s accidentally broken out of her world for even just a moment, it could trigger a panic attack.

“I’m fine. I’m doing fine!” Nico says, making his voice upbeat. He takes a step back from her. “Looks like it’s time for me to go,” he says even though his twenty minutes are barely over. “I’ll see you next time, Bianca. Stay safe on those hunts.” He doesn’t like reinforcing her illusions, but he’s not a doctor, and he doesn’t want to say the wrong thing and trigger a breakdown.

She gives him a sunny smile. “Just remember – don’t hold grudges. It’s dangerous for a son of Hades.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that so he returns a shaky smile before exiting the pristine room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [so yes, i have been reading gakkou gurashi but that part with Bianca surprisingly has always been planned and not spontaneous]
> 
> Comments would be great, of course! :)


	6. I Wish I Could Say What I’m Feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NICO [sent 12:22am]  
> No, it’s fine. But I’m just curious: are you usually this sophisticated over text with your friends?  
> -  
> WILL [sent 12:22am]  
> I could ask the same about you. ;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry. I've been dead from school and left deprived of sleep by doing things like procrastination on finals & midterms + taking too many shifts for a seasonal retail job. To top that off, my computer hard drive decided to die one day. TL;DR: I've had very little time to write. Chapter title from "We Won't" by Jaymes Young and Phoebe Ryan
> 
> The chapter summary is misleading on the tones of the chapter.
> 
> Percico undertones depending on how you see it.
> 
> Tags to be updated + changed.

He waits until midnight to send his first message to Will, a part of him hoping that he’s still awake to read it and the other part of him wanting him to be asleep and unable to respond. Lying on his side in his bed, he carefully types the words.

 

 **NICO** [ _sent at 12:00am_ ]

It’s Nico.

 

He stares at it for a second, the bright screen illuminating his face and the darkened room. Then he turns the screen off and drops it unceremoniously on his bed with a soft thump before rolling the other way so that his back is facing the phone. There is no point in playing his own version of _Waiting for Godot_.

Just when his eyes are sinking to a close, a loud chirp buzzes through the room, filing up the empty space with life. He turns around quickly, grabbing the phone and turning the ringer off before shutting off the screen in time for it to be out of sight when the door opens.

“Nico?” Hazel’s voice drifts into the room. “Did I hear something?”

“It’s nothing. I just knocked over something,” Nico lies easily under his covers, but his palms are sweaty around his phone. It’s not unusual that Hazel is up at midnight – she almost always is. But she must be keeping herself alert and attentive to Nico’s needs these past few days. He feels a little bad about it, and apologizes silently for being such a burden.

Hazel hesitates at the doorway, but she says a soft, “Okay, sleep tight,” before she shuts the door quietly and allows the darkness to seep in. He waits for a few seconds with only his steady breathing to keep him company before he turns on the screen of his phone and reads the message undoubtedly from Will.

 

 **WILL** [ _sent at 12:02am_ ]

Hey what’s up?

Nico wants to laugh at how formal they sound over the phone. He quickly types out the next message.

 **NICO** [ _sent at 12:05am_ ]

Currently giving up on my attempts at sleeping. Thought I’d text you.

 **WILL** [ _sent at 12:07am_ ]

Well, glad that I’m still awake. TBH I didn’t think you were gonna text me.

 **NICO** [ _sent at 12:07am_ ]

Why not?

 **WILL** [ _sent at 12:07am_ ]

Maybe because of the fiasco at school today.

 **NICO** [ _sent at 12:08am_ ]

I think that disaster is EXACTLY why I would text you.

 **WILL** [ _sent at 12:09am_ ]

Yeah I guess so. Sorry about the thing with your friend.

 **NICO** [ _sent at 12:12am_ ]

Her name’s Reyna. Don’t be sorry about it. It was her who brought the whole issue up. Besides, I should be the one apologizing to you anyway. I guess I’m kind of a train wreck.

 

He regrets the words the moment he hits the enter key and he wonders why he’s so thoughtless in real life and through text messages where he has the time to think about his words. He wishes he could stop playing victim for once and stop subliminally sending ‘pity me; I’m precious’ undertones. Minutes pass by without response, and he’s about to give up, turn off his phone and give in to sleepless night until the screen of his phone lights up with a text from Will.

 

 **WILL** [ _sent at 12:20am_ ]

You’re not a train wreck and you don’t need to apologize for anything. We all need outlets for our anger and I was Reyna’s. I just hope my interference didn’t ruin your friendship with her. And I know that I’ve only seemingly randomly appeared in your life and that I shouldn’t suddenly be priority over everyone else. I guess I’ve been acting like I should be the center of your world even though I’m not just because of some sense of responsibility and guilt that I feel over what happened. I don’t want you to feel like you have to make room for me even though that’s exactly what I did at school today. Or yesterday, now. I’ve thought about it, and I’m sorry about coveting you into letting me into your life even though you were reluctant in the first place.

 **NICO** [ _sent at 12:21am_ ]

That’s a lot to take in.

 **WILL** [ _sent at 12:21am_ ]

Sorry, I didn’t mean to blow up on you like that.

 **NICO** [ _sent 12:22am_ ]

No, it’s fine. But I’m just curious: are you usually this sophisticated over text with your friends?

 **WILL** [ _sent 12:22am_ ]

I could ask the same about you. ;)

 **WILL** [ _sent at 12:22am_ ]

Oh god, I just made things awkward did I? Ignore the emoticon – it’s a bad habit.

 **NICO** [ _sent at 12:24am_ ]

Ok.

 **WILL** [ _sent at 12:27am_ ]

I was just wondering…

Do you want to meet me early at school tomorrow?

More like today, haha.

Around an hour before class starts, maybe?

 **NICO** [ _sent at 12:28am_ ]

For what?

 **WILL** [ _sent at 12:30am_ ]

Do you just want to study for exams together? We have a few classes tomorrow. Only if you want to, of course.

 **NICO** [ _sent at 12:31am_ ]

I’ll see.

 **WILL** [ _sent at 12:34am_ ]

Well, I’ll be at the bleachers if you want to be there. See you maybe?

 **NICO** [ _sent at 12:35am_ ]

Maybe.

 

Despite his own noncommittal final replies, Nico stares at the black screen of his phone and waits for a reply as time slowly ticks to one in the morning. Then he turns his phone back on and reads through the messages, slowly reading each line in Will’s lengthiest message. His eyes are captured every time by the wink emoticon a few messages down.

Nico’s not quite sure about what Will means by ‘bad habit’. He could only think of one way to interpret it: Will constantly flirted (or attempted to flirt) with people through text and Nico was just another number on the list. The thought makes something uncomfortable stir in the chest and then he wonders why exactly he feels that way when whatever Will thinks of him shouldn’t matter at all.

It’s dangerous, he thinks, for Will to get under his skin so easily. He doesn’t quite understand the effect that the other boy has on him, but it’s nothing that will end well.

 _As long as you don’t develop feelings for him,_ he thought bitterly to himself. _We don’t want another Reyna in the making to happen, do we?_

Nico turns off his phone and shoves it back on his night stand before throwing his covers over himself. There is no point in thinking about things like this. He needs to find a way to safely distance his own feelings from Will and find a way to forgive what Reyna’s done. The more he thinks about it, the more he can see that the two are connected, and he realizes the root of the problem is William Solace himself.

A cynical laugh bubbles up from his throat. His life is becoming a soap opera: unhinged and dramatic. Nico wonders when people will start to ignore the nuisance he’s becoming.

 

It’s half an hour before school starts and Nico can make out a figure sitting on the school bleachers facing an empty school field. He walks over, his footsteps slow and small. Before he can change his mind, Nico calls out his name. “Will!”

Not surprisingly, the human-shaped figure turns around and it is indeed Will Solace. Nico is close enough at this point to see surprise on his face, lighting up his features like a glass in the sunlight. His heart quickens its’ pace, once, twice, before Nico breathes in and forces himself walk at a steady pace so his heartbeat can match it.

By the time Nico has climbed up the bleachers to where Will is sitting, the other boy is smiling happily at him. He blinks, a little startled by Will’s brightness. He did come half an hour late after all, half hoping that he had already left and half hoping that he was still there.

“I didn’t think you were going to come,” Will says, moving over to make room for Nico even though there’s an unlimited amount of seats on the otherwise empty bleacher.

“I ran into some complications,” he says, which is half-true. He had spent most of his time pacing his room and wondering whether he should come. It was stupid, really, but Nico couldn’t help it. There was something about Will that made him nervous in a way that he didn’t want to admit was similar to how he used to feel around Percy Jackson.

But it couldn’t be possible, because he had only just met Will, he reminds himself.

True to his word, Will is only interested in talking about preparation for the upcoming exams that they share. Normally, Nico would have been bored to death by this, but he’s been straying from that area for a while now. Strangely enough, he begins to feel less ostracized the more he discusses academics with Will and more like himself. Not a single word about what happened that Friday night comes up, and for a moment, he can forget that it ever existed.

It all comes to an end too soon by a startling crash of reality. Nico’s body is turned towards Will so he doesn’t even notice it when some of Will’s friends are behind him. One of them clears their throat loudly in the middle of what Nico was saying. He flinches and turns around to see a girl standing too close to him, hands with sharp painted nails placed on her hips.

His entire body revolts but he forces himself to stop himself before he can bolt away. His heartbeat ricochets against his ribcage in a completely different way from how he felt around Will earlier.

“By the sounds of it, you two sure are prepared for that English exam,” the girl says with a smile but he can hear the sarcasm in her tone. “Do you mind if I steal Will away from you?” He can tell by her voice that she’s trying to be ironic: telling Nico that Will only belongs to their group and will never swoop down to his no matter what it looks like.

“We were just done,” Nico lies even though they all know it’s not true. He gets up from his seat and hoists his backpack over his shoulder before stepping down from the bleachers without even a backwards glance. Though he’s trying to keep his dignity, his head is bent down and he doesn’t make eye contact with any of them.

“See you in class,” he hears Will say, and Nico thinks that he can detect a questioning tone in his voice.

“Yeah,” Nico says, and involuntarily turns around to get a glance at him. It’s then that he notices the girl standing in the corner, one arm crossed on her chest and the other hanging loosely by her side.

Her hair is curled to perfection, makeup subtle but beautifully highlighting her East Asiatic features, and her eyes are fixated on him.

Reyna’s voice rings in his head. _Drew Tanaka_.

He turns and speed walks down the rest of the steps and toward the school without looking back, only hearing the frantic pounding of his own panicked heartbeat in his ears.

He’s not sure how he makes it to his first class unscathed. His morning with Will is completely forgotten and he forgoes his new seat at the back where he talked with Will yesterday in favour of his original seat beside Percy.

He’s already there, talking to his girlfriend Annabeth in soft tones. She scowls at something he’s saying but it soon turns into a laugh as she punches him in the arm.

Any feelings he’s had for Percy is surprisingly dead, or as dead as it can be in the timespan of a few days. When he looks at them, he doesn’t feel the stinging pain of jealousy that he’s always felt. Something ticks inside of him, but when he turns away, the feelings of unease dissipates, and he vaguely wonders how much of that is Will’s doing and how much of it is that unfortunate night’s doing.

He doesn’t want to think about that night. Drew’s hitch-pitched voice still rings in his ear, and the strange smelling liquid feels like its’ about to make its’ appearance on his desk right now even though most of it is already gone from his system.

Nico’s about to dissolve into a series of flashbacks until Percy’s voice drags him out of it, an unexpected saviour.

“Hey, Nico, are you okay?”

He starts out of his thoughts, turning to focus on Percy’s worried sea-green eyes. He feels the remainder of his feelings by the sudden flush he feels. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he says, wanting to look away from him but still wanting to stare back until Percy looks away. He does the latter, but Percy’s gaze doesn’t waver or break.

“If you’re not feeling well, you should go to the nurse,” he says. Nico is about to say that he’s never been to the nurse’s office until Percy suggests the next thing. “I can take you there.” He can see Annabeth nodding from beside Percy, and he feels like they think he’s their younger sibling rather than a contender for any sort of romantic affection from Percy. Nico is about to turn down the offer until he sees Will walking into the classroom.

“Yeah, that’ll be good. Okay,” Nico says, getting up from his seat so quickly that he bumps his knees against the desk.

Percy quickly tells the teacher where they’re headed before he begins to lead Nico out of the classroom. When Nico grabs his bag off the chair, his eyes are immediately drawn to the back corner where Will is sitting and he finds that the other boy is staring at him. They both look away the second their eyes meet, and Nico hurriedly turns around and follows Percy.

Once they are in the safety of the hallway, Percy asks the question he’s been subconsciously asking himself:

“So do you like William Solace or something?”

He doesn’t like the way people call him ‘William’ instead of just ‘Will’. It makes him sound too…sophisticated, too far away from him, too unattainable.

 “Where did you get that from?” Nico asks, and then he wonders if Percy has ever noticed that Nico’s had a crush on him for years. He can only think of one word for that: awkward.

Percy shrugs, looking at him curiously. “I guess I’ve just been hearing things.” He pauses. “Not that I’m homophobic or anything: I think it’s totally fine if you like him. So I just thought I’d ask you about it.”

“Was this the whole point of your suggestion for me to go to the nurse’s office?” Nico asks flatly, affection for Percy becoming mitigated by his own quick conclusion jumping.

Percy’s eyebrows scrunch together. “What? No! Of course not! I was concerned for you as a classmate, and I just thought to ask you. Sorry if it was uncomfortable.” He scratches the back of his neck, offering him a cheeky grin.

Nico’s frown smooths out at his words, finding himself unable to stay angry at him. “It’s okay. I don’t know how I feel about Will. We’ve only just met, really.” Saying the words out loud makes him aware of just how tentative things are between them. “I don’t know,” he says again, looking down at the tiled floor.

“I think it’s cute,” Percy says without thinking, and Nico’s head jerks up so he can see the surprisingly thoughtful expression on Percy’s face.

“We’re the same age, Percy. You are not allowed to think that we are cute. It’s a social law,” Nico deadpans.

Percy gives him a small smile and shrugs. “Hey, I’m just giving you an outsider’s point of view.” His smile neutrals to a frown though as he says the next words. “I’m just not so sure about William, though.”

His words make Nico pause for a second. “What do you mean?”

“Doesn’t he always seem like he’s only looking for means to an end? The events he hosts, the actions he makes, the people he surrounds himself with – don’t get me started. Octavian as a friend? Really? Is Octavian really William’s friend or is he just using him in attempts to tie himself to Ivy League graduates – which both of Octavian’s parents are? But hey, maybe I’m wrong. Don’t take me word for word on it. It’s just what I’ve seen.” He offers Nico a hesitant smile, but those words have opened up an entire can of worms.

“Oh,” Nico says slowly, trying to pretend like that information is not new to him, but he can already hear Reyna’s warnings about Will wanting to shut Nico up for the horrendous event that happened at his residence under his watch in case it interfered with any sort of record that would affect his future. Will was clearly _there_ when he stopped things from dissolving into something worse – so he’s not sure why Drew Tanaka is still in his group of friends if he’s seen her there. Nico clearly remembers Will telling him that he wants to find the people who orchestrated the event and charge them. But Drew is still there, and Will has not said a single word.

He’s not sure how he feels about this: budding friendship that quickly ended in flames. He’s not even sure if it was even _friend_ ship. But Will must have known that and targeted his weakest points; he must have seen Nico pining after Percy every single day, trying to get the other boy to just see him as a possible romantic interest and not just some unnoticeable male student.

The whole thing was planned from the start, if Percy is right about Will only being out for himself and using people as he wished. His friends were playing around and it went too far, and now Will is dealing with the collateral damage by playing friendly with Nico, hoping that Nico is stupid and hopeful enough to develop any kind of feelings that will prevent him from taking action against Will.

It sounds ridiculous, but then again, Will honestly trying to be his friend also sounds ridiculous. He doesn’t even know Will as a person, so how can he even trust anything that the other boy claims to be? He can hear Reyna’s words in his head. _Has it ever occur to you that he could be brainwashing you?_ He wishes that he hadn’t had that stupid fight with Reyna – about Will.

He also wishes that the pieces didn’t click together so quickly, but they do – dear god, _they do_ and he can’t find a single thing that contradicts this.

“Nico, are you all right?” Percy asks him, snapping him out of his negative spiral. The thought still remains, and every step feels heavier than the last and he just wants to lie down and sleep.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Nico says, lying again.

Percy’s not completely oblivious, and he can tell that Nico’s been thinking about what he said. “Don’t take my word for it,” he says again. “Maybe Will’s into you.” He smiles at Nico, but Nico can barely even process it now that he’s had a taste of his internal denunciations against William Solace.

“Maybe,” Nico says again and he’s reminded of his text conversations at twelve in the morning with Will. Before he has more time to continue the tirade, Percy takes a turn down the hallway and they’re at the nurse’s office.

“Here we are,” Percy says. “Don’t let the exam stress get to you.” Nico nods even though that’s far from his mind. With a quick wave, Percy turns around and heads back to the classroom.

Nico heads through the open door of the office and ends up getting put in one of the beds by an overly sympathetic nurse who thinks he’s going through a mental breakdown from school stress. He sighs, staring up at the white tiled ceiling and wonders how his life dissolved into such a mess over the span of a few days.

He closes his eyes, the brightness he felt in the morning he spent with Will dissipating into a heavy weight on his chest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very grateful for comments + kudos <3  
> On the other hand, please bring up any concerns you have with how I'm handling the situation on whether it is appropriate or triggering without warning etc.


	7. Peeling off these Old Impressions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But still, Will says nothing about Drew Tanaka and that should be a whole answer in itself, but Nico is wringing his hands and he can’t let this go. He can’t, he just can’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be done last week. This chapter was too much for me.
> 
> Anyway, you may have noticed that some of the titles are from lyrics in the playlist. I should probably cite them.  
> This title is from Sayde Price's "Untitled No. 3" I'll get back to the other chapters later.

The apology is the easiest part after Percy’s revelation.

Nico finds Reyna at lunch at their usual place under the large oak tree tucked away in the corner of the field, but she is not alone. His footsteps falter when he sees another girl – it must be Piper – sitting there and talking to her. Strangely, he feels like he’s intruding on an intimate moment despite the fact that they are in plain sight. Reyna dips her head down and a rare smile breaks across her face, sunlight streaming through the shadows of the leaves to highlight it.

And suddenly, Nico feels a deep crevice open up inside his chest, a gnawing sense of loneliness opening up to grasp at anything it can get a hold of. Nico swallows, trying to push down the darkness and he’s about to turn away from the two of them and find a quiet corner before Piper looks up and meets his eyes. He’s surprised when she waves him over and calls out his name.

Reyna looks up at him, her smile fading but fortunately not being replaced with a scowl. He walks over slowly, foot crunching the crisp grass beneath his feet. Perhaps if Nico lets himself soak in the surroundings, he may hear the faint sound of the funeral dirge playing in the background.

That thought brings a humourless smile to his face, and he throws the silly impression away. “Hi, Piper. Reyna.” When he says her name, he looks deliberately at the dark-haired girl staring stoically back at him. “I’m sorry about what I said yesterday.” He is completely sincere, no hint of sarcasm or mockery in his tone or expression.

Apparently the apology comes as a surprise because Reyna’s eyes narrow for a second before she is stoic once again. “And I am too,” Reyna says a little too stiffly like this is a business transaction. “I should have never made those accusations in public –”

“No, it’s okay,” Nico says, sliding his hands into his jean pockets and kicking a misplaced stone. He stares at the grassy ground when he says the next words. “Percy told me about him.”

There’s silence and then the predicted, bewildered but somehow exasperated at the same time, “ _What?_ ”

He rushes to get the words out, not wanting to dwell on the thoughts of his own developing feelings at the time and what all of Will’s actions mean now. “Will – William’s just trying to get to me because he doesn’t want me to point fingers at him. He was playing with my feelings, that’s all. Thanks for looking out for me.” The words fall flat at the end. Truly, he is grateful about Reyna looking out for him, but no matter how grateful he is, reality hits hard.

Nico remembers when he read a book about multiple universes, mainly he was trying to understand Bianca’s condition at that point, but the thought has surfaced again. If only he were someplace else, a different person, perhaps a different time. And maybe he would have never met Will and he would happily be in love with Percy Jackson. Or maybe – just maybe if things were different but nearly the same, he and Will would not be worlds apart the way he feels like they are now and maybe they would have met in a different way –

There are too many maybes for Nico to even think about. No matter how many worlds he imagines in his mind, he will always be stuck in this one.

“Nico, I’m sorry,” Reyna says quietly, and he starts out of his thoughts to see his friend looking at him with pity.

“I’m the one who’s sorry,” Nico says with a bitter smile. “I shouldn’t have trusted him so blindly like that.” Before she can interject, he shrugs and adds, “I’ve only known him for a few days anyway. It’s not like there’s any damage done yet.” That should be true. That _should_ be true; Nico doesn’t feel like it is. “I’m fine.” The echo of the text message he sent that morning reverberates in his head and he clenches his hands into fists, releases them, then breathes out.

The words are indicative enough of a truth he doesn’t want to admit. He wants to hate Will for how weak he’s made him, but he ends up hating himself for being so pathetic and trusting and stupid and gullible. If only he could erase the last few days from his life and he can go back to being Nico the wallflower rather than Nico the victim. But the picture has already been painted and the only thing he can do now and find a fresh coat of paint to replace it.

“Why don’t you sit down with us?” Piper asks, tone gentle and soothing. He nods, swallowing at the lump in his throat and sits down between Piper and Reyna on the grass, not even caring if he’s interrupting a romantic moment.

Reyna must have told Piper at least a little bit about what happened at the party because she scoots over so she isn’t touching him. He can’t find it within himself to be mad over it when he’s feeling numb and upset at the same time. Maybe he should have gone home like the nurse suggested, but he didn’t want to see Hazel’s pitiful looks anymore.

“You…want to talk about it some more?” Reyna asks uncertainly, never having been one for the words. She was good with the practical, not the emotional.

 Nico shakes his head no, bringing his knees up to his chin and wrapping his arms around them. It’s warm here even with the tree’s shade, but his body feels cold and heavy, like he’s fallen through a frozen lake and then dragged out and dumped unceremoniously in the snow.

Piper, ever the perceptive, speaks before Reyna assents. “Will isn’t bad.”

He looks over at her, slightly surprised to find the pensive look on her face when she stares off into the fields in the distance. “What do you mean?” he says, finding his voice. Not monotone, but a flicker of emotion that even he cannot decipher.

She begins to hesitate, eyes flashing to his before she looks back at the field again. “When I was… Well when I was dating Jason, I was part of ‘their’ group. It’s a clique thing, you know – all the privileged band together.” She shrugs like it’s nothing, but there’s something harsh behind her otherwise lightweight words. “Admittedly, they are not the best people in the world. Pretty shallow too if you ask me – seeing as how Jason was cheating on me with Drew the entire time.” She laughs humourlessly. “But Will – well. He’s not like the others.”

“How so?” Reyna asks, looking genuinely interested in what Piper has to say despite her earlier animosity for him.

“He’s always been a little bit different, I guess,” Piper says vaguely. She continues before either Nico or Reyna can scoff at her words and rebut that you could say that about anyone and everyone who ever lived. “Will’s never really _belonged_ the way everyone else did. It’s kind of like he was just going through the motions without really meaning it, you know? And yeah, we considered each other to all be friends, but Will was another category. To be honest, I don’t even think he considers anyone close to him to be friends.”

“So he’s fake,” Nico summarizes in his own words, ripping a blade of grass from its seams on the ground and tossing it away from him.

Piper shakes her head. “No – he’s the opposite.” She turns to stare at Nico with those piercing eyes and he is rooted to earth by the intensity of her gaze. “He doesn’t care about status or reputation or any of it, but he’s surrounded by people who do, and not by choice.” She doesn’t elaborate on what she means by _choice_ and instead ventures elsewhere. “He may seem like a socialite, but he’s more isolated than anyone else. And Nico, I don’t think he’s playing with you. He wouldn’t go out of his way to spend time with someone he doesn’t genuinely like, whether it’s for his own personal gain or not.”

Nico can’t find anything to say to that, and he forcibly tears his eyes away from hers, no longer wanting to be pinned by her look.

“You were always the perceptive one,” Reyna remarks, though more timid than Nico has heard her. Maybe he should be happy for her and the fact that the two of them are going somewhere after two years of stasis, but all he can think about are Percy’s words and Piper’s opinion.

They don’t match at all, and Nico is once again unsure of what he should be feeling. He so badly wants to believe in Piper’s hopeful words, but he doesn’t want to set himself up for major disappointment.

“Thanks,” Piper says, eyes flashing to Reyna’s face before looking away again, and Nico thinks that he’s probably intruding on something right now and should leave. However, he is lacking in strength of the physical and the mental states so he remains fixed in his spot. “But Nico, I hope you take what I said into consideration. Will isn’t trying to hurt you.”

“Do you even know what happened that night?” Nico asks, finding the tone of his voice involuntarily rising upwards to a shrill sound. He winces and then breathes out, trying to calm himself down. “Will has every reason to try and manipulate me.” Why is it so hard to put it into words? Nico feels short of breath after he says it, and he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath into his trembling lungs. (He is so, so pathetic right now.)

There’s a beat of silence and then, “Nico I know what happened. Reyna told me.” He cannot muster the energy to throw an angry look at Reyna. “Will has every reason to approach you, so don’t write off his intentions so quickly.”

Piper is so calm and reasoning that it makes him feel like he’s talking to a brick wall even though she’s telling him everything he wants to hear. Maybe that’s the reason why he can’t find himself fully trusting her words: because this is the Will Solace that he wants to believe exists for him alone, and not another person who will wring him dry of his uses.

“I wish I didn’t give a shit,” he speaks out loud, meaning to have thought it but not have said it. “I wish I didn’t care about any of this – Will and Drew and Beatrice – I hate myself for caring so goddamn much.” There is an unexpected amount of vigor that rushes through him at the last words.

“There’s nothing wrong about caring,” Reyna reassures him.

Piper agrees: “Don’t be so tough on yourself.”

But Nico is done with this: done with sitting around with a lake of angst deep enough to drown him if he is immobile long enough. He’s done with letting other people tell him conflicting opinions on what he should thinking, and mostly, he’s done with dwelling on the past like it’s something dragging his entire being down into a pit of darkness –

Who is he kidding?

The vigor leaves in the same rush that it had entered, and Nico feels drained once again like he’s never had it in the first place, and this whole world is full of wishes, but Nico feels more alone than before. Somehow, just barely, momentary strength urges him to get to his feet without stumbling.

“Yeah, I know,” he says in reply to the two girls, and then gives them a false smile, big enough that he looks genuine but not large enough for them to tell it to be untruthful. “Thanks, Piper,” he directs toward the other girl even though he isn’t sure what he’s thanking her for. He turns around and leaves the two of them alone in their little haven without his woes to bother them.

His feet takes him back inside the school, and it’s quiet for lunchtime when all the students have been released from their classes. It’s a different place without all the students clamouring about, wanting to hear the latest rumour about what was going on and who was dating whom. It was all so conceited and garish, so Nico was glad to finally find the hallways empty of the cackling calls from the vultures who had decided to turn their attention to Nico ever since that Friday night.

His footsteps echo through the vacant hallways without direction until another pair of faster footsteps follow his. Nico turns around quickly on the heels of his shoes, eyes narrowed, heart thumping, and waiting for one of the girls from that Friday night to appear; he should have known – should have known that he’s not safe enough and especially not while walking through the school so aimlessly no matter how brightly the sun is shining outside.

But it is not any of them – it is the person that Nico has wanted to meet the least at this very moment.

“Hey, Nico,” Will says with a sunny smile, so-called friends absent, and Nico’s reminded so much of Piper’s words. _He may seem like a socialite, but he’s more isolated than anyone else._ Here in the empty hallway with Nico at a standstill and Will approaching him with more haste than what can be considered normal, he feels those words resonant the clearest.

“Hi,” Nico greets back noncommittally, not wanting to seem like he’s spent hours thinking about Will. Vaguely, he wonders how Will would react if he were brave enough to ask him the true intentions behind all of his actions. Percy’s offhand comments invade his thoughts, shouting loud over Piper’s and Nico takes a step back to create distance between the two of them.

The other boy notices and Nico thinks he may have seen his expression fall but maybe he’s just imagining things that don’t exist. “Where are your friends?” Nico continues the conversation, covertly trying to uncover the truth he’s looking for.

Will looks to the side and shrugs, dismissing the question. “Around, probably,” he answers, turning his eyes back to Nico, and Nico tries to swallow his disappointment. Of course Will would turn this around as easily as he proposed it.

But still, he says nothing about Drew Tanaka and that should be a whole answer in itself, but Nico is wringing his hands and he can’t let this go. He can’t, he just can’t.

“What about…” He can’t say her name; he can’t say her name so he substitutes it for another: “Octavian?”

After all, it was only yesterday when Octavian gripped his cold hands around Nico’s wrist and demanded to know what was going on between him and Will. He doesn’t want to think about the way that his hostility nearly hit something deep inside of him that would make him remember things that he wants to forget. And now the thought of him is making him avert his eyes, fingers reaching to scratch down roughly on the inside of his right wrist.

But then Will’s hands are suddenly covering his wrist, having closed the distance between them in a few short steps, and he finds his eyes widening when the warmth of Will’s skin presses against the fabric of his long-sleeved shirt – touching him but not at the same time. Yet he can’t find himself pulling away, and…Will’s hands do not bring forth any lingering memories that would urge him to pull away. He holds just above Nico’s wrists and pulls them apart before he releases his hold, leaving warm imprints on where his hands were just seconds ago, cold air rushing to replace where his warmth was.

Nico searches Will’s face immediately; the other boy averts his eyes and takes a step back. “Ah – sorry. I don’t know what came over me,” he apologizes, running his hand through his hair and looking at anywhere but Nico. “I just noticed… That you, um, scratch yourself when you’re uncomfortable. I’m sorry – what I did was just out of hand – I wasn’t thinking.”

He’s startled by Will’s attentiveness, knowing that Will couldn’t have possibly known that unless he’s carefully observed Nico over the past days. But even then this would have been difficult for him to pick up in those few days. He’s about to ask him when and where did he catch on, but Will quickly deflects that with his answer of the original question.

“Anyway, Octavian and I aren’t really friends. We’re just acquaintances.”

“He sure didn’t act that way yesterday,” Nico comments. In the emptiness of the hallway, his observations sound more like an accusation.

“He’s a little brash,” Will admits. “But I’ve asked him to stop after what he did. We’re not really friends.” There’s a pause and then, “I promise I’m not like him.”

Nico nods but doesn’t speak, not knowing what else he can do except bring up the topic of Drew, which he doesn’t want to. Will must sense that something’s changed between them since this morning because he peers almost anxiously at Nico and then asks in the wake of his silence, “Am I upsetting you? Because if I am, then I could just leave. I’m sorry.” The words fly out in a rush, stumbling over each other and practically falling over with nervousness.

He doesn’t get why Will is so antsy around him right now, spouting apologies here and there, and he thinks maybe it has something to do with the way that Will had touched him, heat against heat, and there’s something intimate about it: an empty hallway and two boys, a breath’s width too close to each other.

Maybe, Nico muses, it’s internal homophobia creeping up on him. The whole touching sequence must have left him confused and have broken all sorts of ‘no homo’ societal rules. Will himself had confirmed that he was straight yesterday when Nico probed the answer by saying that he wasn’t gay, even if it was a somewhat noncommittal affirmation.

“I don’t understand you.” The words escape faster than he can clamp his mouth shut. He wants to scratch down on his wrist again after hearing his own words, but he knows that the other boy will take notice of it so he forces himself to continue: pulling the words out even if they make him bleed in the process. “Why are you so focused on me at the end of the school year when you’ve had four years to even ask for my name? Why now? You’ve already denied it, but I still feel like it has something to do with that party. And I also don’t understand the deal with your friends. They all act like they hate me – which is fine – but they hate me when I’m around you. Are they just all very possessive or do they all have a common list of pros by being friends with the wealthiest guy in school? And then just now –” He doesn’t know how to finish it. Maybe Nico had merely imagined that the touch was more intimate than it really was. He looks away from Will and shoves his hands into his pockets, eyes tracing the lines of the tiled flooring.

The silence seems to hold its’ breath for a second before it is broken by Will’s voice. “I don’t know how to answer that.”

Words that feel like waterfalls: “Piper told me about you.” A trickle. “She said you were not like the others.” Perhaps a roaring rush. “That you seem like you have it all, but in reality you’re lonelier than all of your so-called friends combined.” But nevertheless involuntary, unrelenting, uninhibited. “But I still can’t figure out true from false. Tell me without bringing up that night – why have I suddenly become interesting to you?”

Silence is heavier than it seems; Nico’s thumping heart is the only rhythm in his ears when he forces himself to hold eye contact with Will.

The boy in question doesn’t look away, but there’s a note of hesitancy in his eyes, an inner struggle to pull away and attempt to laugh it off even though they both know they can’t. A part of Nico berates himself for bringing this moment upon them so quickly; he hadn’t meant to destroy the fragility of their budding relationship as friends or whatever the hell they were, but he couldn’t live with not asking these questions ever.

“I’m afraid that’s impossible.” The words are a punch to Nico’s lungs, and he deflates the moment he hears them, the little hope that he had sinking down the bottom of his shoes. Will confirmed it: everything between them up until this moment was purely because the incident at the party and saving his own face. And it’s only been a few days, but somehow Nico feels that loss echo deep inside of his chest.

And all Nico can say is: “I see.”

He should turn to leave right now, but his feet are frozen in place, and it feels like Will’s eyes are holding him in his place. If only he could swallow these emotions and then let it burn in the acid of his stomach.

Finally, the one stepping down on him relents, averting his eyes, sighing heavily and running his hands through his hair in such an exasperated way that Nico feels like this is all of his fault – just like that Friday night. Standing there with only Will for a witness, he realizes what a truly tiresome burden he’s been to everyone, and he wonders what it will take for everything to go back to the way it was no matter how alone he felt then because it is nothing compared to the way he feels now.

Will mumbles the next words: “That’s not what I meant.” Maybe he intends to reach out and touch Nico again, but he seems to remember himself and his arms drop down to his sides. Nico finds himself drawn to hands, clenching into fists and then unclenching to hang loosely by his side.

“I don’t understand.”

The outburst is unexpected but yet everything has been building up to this moment after all. “Yes! Okay? Yes! I did approach you because of what happened Friday night at my place and supposedly under my watch! And I’m fucking sorry for what happened, but I can’t change a single thing and I feel like shit for it! But I’m _not_ approaching you because I think I can shut you up if you want to speak up against me. _Hell_ , I _want_ you to say something bad about me: it sure would feel like retribution for the things I let happen.” There’s a choked off laugh, and Will rubs his hand over his face, and Nico is suddenly aware of how tired Will looks – the imperceptibly slouched posture, the hint of bags under his eyes, and the too light pallor of his skin. 

And now the roles have been reversed, or at least that’s how Nico feels. “I’m not mad at you for what happened.”

Will’s words don’t cut corners. “But I am! And every time I look at you –” A pause, a beat, then the realization.

“I get it,” Nico finally voices, forcing a fractured smile upon his lips even though he would prefer to just turn around and walk away from him. “Then just…leave me alone if it makes you feel that way. It’s not like I’m complaining.” The attempt at nonchalance comes out horribly inadequate, more like a taunt than anything.

And in a span of these few minutes, they’ve both managed to wreck their fragile relationship with nothing but words spoken the wrong moment.

But Nico can’t live with that, can’t look at Will to gauge his expression before the storm, but he can’t take the words back so he throws more into the fire, hoping with everything he has that these words will be the quelling water.

“I’m sorry. I…didn’t mean it.”

Everything sounds so vapid and empty, but he can’t do this – this dance of pretending, of avoidance, of circling around each other. “I just don’t know what to think. I didn’t mean for it to come to this. I…” A laugh bubbles up, and then the hallway resonances with his hollow laughter. “I’m so worked up about this, but I shouldn’t be. I should just _let it go_.” It’s fucking hilarious, Nico thinks, reminded of him and Reyna two years ago right after she confessed to Piper and gotten rejected. _“Don’t ever fall for straight girls.”_

Will isn’t exactly a girl, and while there have been rumours circling around his sexuality, he did vaguely confirm he wasn’t into males, and why is Nico thinking about this again?

But somehow Nico’s somewhat inside joke but not at the same time has made a confused grin crack on Will’s face.

“I’m sorry for flipping out – that’s not like me,” Will says, taking a step closer to Nico. “Are we…okay now?”

But the laughter is just as shallow as their words. Still, Nico can’t help compromising. He admits it: he wants to believe Piper’s interpretation of Will’s intentions more than Percy’s. And hope has gotten him so far, so here’s to hoping. “To an extent.”

Will puts his hand on his shoulder. “Leave it to you to say what you’re thinking.” He lifts his hands a second too late, and Nico realizes that he is becoming obsessed with Will’s hands.

Still, Nico wonders how often he says what he’s thinking, especially around someone who manages to make his heart react so violently in such a trivial timespan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> help me this fic is a snowball effect. I will try to keep it below 50k but sometimes I really let myself go...


	8. Pitch Black, Pale Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “When do you,” Nico begins quietly, “get to decide what ‘gives me closure’? When do you get to decide what’s best for me? When do you even begin to have an _inkling of understanding_ about what happened and how I’m coping? Because I am coping! I don’t _need this_. I don’t want to – I don’t want to –” He leaves the sentence hanging, but they both know what happens to people who go to the authorities about sexual assault cases.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was supposed to be posted earlier because i wanted to write a valentines day fic. this chapter is unfit for the valentines mood.
> 
> finally, bringing in the legalities. All mistakes and misinformation are mine. Legalities in the future of this fic will follow the Canadian standard b/c idk American laws.
> 
> tw: mentions of misogyny + homophobia in the modern legal system, self-harm
> 
> Chapter title from "Neptune" by Sleeping At Last

A sheet of paper lined with neat handwriting falls out when Nico opens his locker after the confusing encounter with Will the previous day. He stares at it for a while and then he bends over and picks it up, thumb and forefinger pinching the edges of the paper, half of it on the ground and the other curved against the door of the locker.

He notices the writing first: neat and meticulous, like a medical report – letters all lined up against each other and perfectly spaced. Yet there’s a delicate quirk to it that he can’t put his finger on – perhaps it’s the way that the lines that cross the _t_ ’s are slightly slanted, almost like a minuscule tremor in the orderliness. He then reads the words on the page, no longer than four lines:

 

_You fit into me_

_like a hook into an eye_

_a fish hook_

_an open eye_

In the very far right corner, written in tiny upper-case letters: _Margaret Atwood_

Nico’s not sure what he should be feeling, but somehow the poem whoever has copied and then left him has managed to evoke a stirring feeling in his upper chest, right below his throat – not the telltale scream of anxiety and discomfort, but something else entirely that he can’t quite put his finger on. It’s strange; a slight tightening of his chest and then release before a hard thump or two of his heart against his ribcage.

He frowns and then folds up the piece of paper, putting it on the top shelf of his locker and slamming the door shut.

 

Will’s absence is the most significant part of Nico’s day.

He can’t help the feeling of swooping down low and then falling down and down and down like there’s no bottom so he’s stuck in a state of mobile inertia. The only up is when Percy offers him a smile in greeting when he sees Nico, and once that may have left him enthused, but now it makes him think of Will Solace, and then he spirals into thinking if he really does feel something for Will or if this is just the momentary thought of possible infatuation with said person mistaken for the real thing.

Then it keeps spiraling downwards to his repetitive thoughts yesterday that Will has confirmed wasn’t true over and over again. And it all ends with Nico wishing he could carve out his feelings – just reach inside of him and pull out his heart, a scalpel held in a latex gloved hand slicing down the dotted lines where all of his feelings lie and then wrench the bloody essence out until there’s only a gaping vacancy where he used to feel things.

It’s such a stupid thought, Nico thinks, but oddly, so strangely satisfying in his own imagery that it stays with him long after the idea has surfaced. And without Will to curb his alarmingly despondent behaviour – which for some reason makes him feel better in a twisted way – he’s allowed to dwell on these thoughts for the entirety of the day; he savours it.

Nobody bothers him the entire day. There are no unwanted stares and hushed whispers circling around him, and Nico takes the small blessing to soothe over his own wounds from the verbal lashing – intended or no – these past few days. During the lunch break, he spots Reyna and Piper underneath the oak tree once again and this time he gets the hint.

Nonetheless, the bleachers are surprisingly empty for a warm spring day, silver metal warmed by the relentless glare of the sun. He climbs the steps all the way up to the upmost seats, setting down his backpack and letting the soft breeze muss up his hair, tossing loose black strands that are a little too long in his face. From the top, Reyna and Piper look like tiny unimportant shapes that resemble human figures. The urge to keep going upwards overwhelms Nico, and he finds a part of himself wishing he could reach higher and higher until the ground disappears, swallowing all of the tiny humans with it until there’s nothing left but clouds and sunshine for miles and miles.

 

Hazel texts him when the day is almost over, telling him that she can’t pick him up after school today and then a line or two of apology.

 

 **NICO** [ _sent at 2:38pm_ ]

It’s ok.

 

He’s always been walking home earlier in the semester, when Hazel’s college classes were in session. What he doesn’t understand is why she’s making it seem like a big deal. A thought occurs to him right after he sends his reply: she doesn’t trust his own ability to take care of himself.

A bitter smile makes its way on his face. Of course she doesn’t trust him anymore. Maybe a part of her thinks exactly what anyone else would think if they knew the truth: it’s his own fault. He was practically asking for it. He can’t act responsibly and became the victim of non-consensual acts. He’s not a fucking man.

Nico wants to throw his phone across the room, but the teacher is droning on and on about the exams and he’s certain that he’s going to draw unwanted attention to himself if he did it. Just like he drew unwanted attention to himself that night.

He scratches his nails hard down on his right wrist, tearing apart pieces of the first layer of his skin, indicating by the peeling white flakes where his nail ravaged a path. Then he takes a breath and exhales before turning on his phone again, changing over to his text history with Will and reads them over starting from the beginning.

Will had texted him last night, and it feels almost like their almost-argument yesterday had never happened. He took Nico’s words to the heart, letting the conversation slip away from his mind, but Nico’s not quite sure if he can do that. He’s still not sure _where_ he stands with Will, and reading through the text messages has not made his understanding any clearer. He wonders if he’ll go through a fall out like Reyna and Piper and the maybe in two years –

No, he can’t be thinking like that. Unlike Reyna and Piper, there’s nothing substantial between them. Nico’s just confused about his own feelings. And Will… Will is a shrouded mystery hiding behind a sunny demeanour. Sometimes, but only rarely, does Nico see Will’s imperfect-self leaking through, but never long enough for Nico to decipher what it means.

He turns off his phone, shutting off the messages, and then turns his phone screen-down on his table. There is no point in thinking about something that does not even exist. If luck is on his side, he won’t ever see Will again after the exams and then Nico can close the short chapter of the William Solace part of his life.

 

The signs come in three:

There is an expensive sports car in the driveway of his house. It does not belong to the financially impaired Hazel or his eccentric stepmother who’s been away on a ‘business trip’ for weeks.

He can hear someone shouting inside, and it sounds like his half-sister. Hazel, who is interminably patient, is screaming at someone.

When Nico is at the door, the last person he expects to see opens it.

They both stare at each other, wide-eyed and silent before Will clears his throat, looks up and down at Nico, and then looks away. Nico looks down at the ground, wondering if he is really that painful to look at right now even though he can’t find anything evidently wrong about his appearance. His mind also starts wandering. He’s not entirely sure how he knows where Nico lives, why he’s here, and why he was with Hazel. He hadn’t even know that they were acquainted, and the pessimistic and self-hating part of himself gives the worst answer in all possible worlds.

_Will is sleeping with Hazel._

It makes him feel terrible, lower than the garbage that Will must step on every day, and he scratches down his wrist again in the same place. His heart pounds in his chest, feeling like it's crawling up his throat at every beat. And the more he thinks about it, the more it makes sense to him in his already scrambled logic. He remembers back on Saturday morning when he overheard bits and pieces of Will’s conversation with someone over the phone concerning his condition. Maybe he was talking to Hazel, and he felt responsible the entire time not because it put his scholarship at risk, but because it put his secret relationship at risk.

And that’s why he hasn’t debunked any of the myths about his sexuality going around – because it kept people from digging into his sexual history and finding Hazel Levesque, the rumoured gay boy’s elder sister. If they were searching for a man, they wouldn’t reach the same conclusion. People only see what they want to see, after all.

He doesn’t wait for Will to say or explain anything. Instead, he forces himself accepts his conclusion as the truth, even though he knows that it has an equal possibility of being false too. But that’s the thing. He can’t anymore – he can’t keep letting himself get dragged along by the Will Solace Feelings train _because that’s exactly what they are_. He needs something to block his path to a disaster, and accepting this is a step back from his overwhelming feelings. Will is not his, never his, and never will be. The sooner Nico learns that, the less heartache he’ll experience.

Nico forces himself to stand a little taller and say, “Hello, Will,” without a tremble in his voice even though he does not feel the bravado he is projecting. He doesn’t look at Will, can’t make himself do it lest he bursts out into a rambling madman. Then he maneuvers his way into his house, shoulder bumping into Will without intention. A spark runs down to his gut from the short but warm touch, but the tightness of his chest mitigates the feeling. Nico wants to do something reckless right now, but he doesn’t know what.

Hazel calls out to him. “Nico, wait.” Her words are croaked, scratchy from screaming or something else – Nico doesn’t want to think about it any longer.

He ignores her, taking the steps two upstairs two at a time until he reaches his room. He slams the door shut and then releases the breath he hadn’t noticed he was holding. The solid door presses into his back, and Nico closes his eyes, arms crossing tightly over his chest.

(He doesn’t want to admit it to himself. What he really wanted was to pull Will close and just hold him and press his face into his chest and hear his steady heartbeat until it calms him. He wanted to run his fingers through Will’s blond locks. He wanted to press his lips against Will’s for just a heartbeat even if it doesn’t mean anything to the other boy.)

There is no bravery in the way that he escapes the two of them. He hides in his room for the entire day, ignoring the buzz of his phone at Will’s lone text message. He turns off his phone after that, burrowing under his covers and reciting math formulas in his head to keep his mind occupied. When Hazel calls him down for dinner hours later, both of them are unwilling to speak, letting the silence drag itself through the entire house to the point where Nico feels the need for destruction just to get a rise out of his sister. It sounded like Hazel and Will were having a fight earlier – maybe their relationship was falling apart because of a mess named Nico.

“I’m sorry,” Nico finally says after much contemplation, sitting rigid in his seat and looking at Hazel. He watches the way she looks up at him, expression split between confusion and sorrow, her curly hair framing her feminine face. He wonders if he would be having so many problems right now if he were born a female instead of a male. Maybe then he wouldn’t be pining uselessly after straight boys who have no interest in him. “Sorry that I…” He’s not even sure what exactly he’s sorry for, only that he’s a pitiful chaos of parts that make up a human being.

“What are you talking about?” Hazel asks, tone partially questioning and partially sharp, remnants of the earlier argument with Will. “Nico, I don’t understand.”

He doesn’t want to say it out loud, but perhaps it’s best if he gets it over with. “For ruining your relationship.”

There is an audible beat when Hazel drops her fork on the table and then, “ _What?_ ”

“You and Will.” The sentences are getting shorter and shorter, his throat clamming up every time he thinks he should explain himself.

“Nico,” Hazel says, adapting Reyna’s vocative tone. “There is absolutely nothing going on between myself and your classmate.”

“Then why were you – Why was he here?” Nico’s torn between feeling relieved and dismayed at the same time.

Hazel doesn’t spare him the pain of ignorance and cuts corners, voice monotone, completely sick of Nico’s recent desire to burn down every relationship around him, no doubt. “We were talking about what happened on Friday night and the legal actions we could take, and we had a slight disagreement.”

They haven’t discussed that night in what feels like forever. “When did this start?” Nico demands, suddenly feeling sick to his stomach at the thought of what happened. At the thought of the authorities, trials, and disbelieving voices. _You were asking for it. You’re a man – can’t you fend off a couple of girls? Who told you to drink it anyway? This isn’t a matter of drugged sexual assault – just an example of men who fail to adapt in this society. There is no case – only a stupid boy who deserves what he got._

His hands are shaking, and he clenches them into fists and punches his arm once, hard. He needs these thoughts to stop _now_. This is exactly the reason why he does not want to go down this lane – does not want his scars being reopened in front of paid strangers to cross-examine, poke and prod until he’s bleeding all over the ground. Then claim that there were never wounds in the first place – only a misguided little boy’s poor attempts at playing adult.

“We started meeting right after I brought you home.” Hazel finally has the shame to look away. “I know you didn’t want this… But Reyna, Will, and I are doing our best. We don’t want this to haunt you – we want to give you closure.”

“When do you,” Nico begins quietly, “get to decide what ‘gives me closure’? When do you get to decide what’s best for me? When do you even begin to have an _inkling of understanding_ about what happened and how I’m coping? Because I am coping! I don’t _need this_. I don’t want to – I don’t want to –” He leaves the sentence hanging, but they both know what happens to people who go to the authorities about sexual assault cases. Maybe it’d be slightly different for him: he’s a man in a patriarchal society, but that doesn’t change his feelings about testifying about how a group of women overpowered him to an assembly of conservative men who will no doubt scoff at his words and then blame his homosexuality.

“Nico…,” Hazel begins, her tone reassuring like she’s approaching a cornered animal. “I know you don’t want to. But don’t you understand? It’s not only about you anymore. Who knows if this – if those people go out and do it again? Because if they got away with it the first time, they _will_ do it again. Nico, please –”

He wants to scream, but he thinks if he says another word then he’ll shed tears and prove to Hazel just how unstable he is. Instead, he pushes his chair back and marches away from her, keeping his head up high and ignoring her pleas for him to stop and _just listen_. His footsteps are steady and determined.

When he reaches the bathroom, his loose grasp on the façade slips, and he throws up in the toilet. Hazel knocks on the locked door constantly, asking him to please come out, but he refuses to listen to her words. She leaves eventually, and Nico spends the entire night on the bathroom floor, a mess of tears, vomit, and self-loathing.

 

Thursday does not hold the same joy-disappointment it once did.

He is late for school, arriving just before lunch starts and receives a glare of disapproval from his teacher. He shouldn’t give a shit about it after everything he’s been through, but it manages his empty stomach churn.

Reyna finds him immediately after the class with a heightened level of exuberance. Obviously Hazel hasn’t told her about what happened last night, but Nico doesn’t want to spoil her mood. And he’s in public right now – he can’t break down now in front of all these vultures. He needs to remain monotone, blend in with the chatter and the noise, even if he is feeling upset that Reyna, Will, and Hazel think that they know best for him.

The GSA meets on Thursdays at lunch, and there has never been anyone else at the meetings except for their bored teacher supervisor. (He still finds it befuddling how people are still confused about his sexual orientation even though he’s the only other member of this club. Perhaps they think he’s the straight to Reyna’s gay.)

This time, Piper is also sitting in the classroom they use for their weekly meetings. She smiles when she sees Reyna, tilting her head slightly.

Nico understands immediately – though he’s a little surprised by the turn of things, he’s always gotten the ‘confused orientation’ vibe from Piper ever since he met her. He’s not surprised when Reyna walks over to her, an almost uncharacteristic bounce in her steps when she leans over and kisses Piper chastely on the lips.

He’s about to give them a heartfelt congratulations, but he’s interrupted by a voice behind him.

“I both expected that and didn’t at the same time,” Will says, walking from the door and into the room with a wide grin on his lips. Nico feels his heartbeat quicken, and he accidentally meets Will’s eyes for a brief second before he looks away. His mind is flooded with thoughts of the fiasco with Hazel, the truth about what the trio were doing behind his back, and the way he knows how he feels now for the other boy.

“Hello, Will,” Nico says, the words stiff-sounding and reminiscent of yesterday. He’s facing Will, but he focuses his eyes behind Will, staring at hallway filled with other students beyond the door.

“Hi, Nico,” he replies lightly, though Nico detects a tone of hesitation in his words. “Did you, ah, get my message last night?”

“My phone died.”

“Oh.” He runs his hand through his hair and then lets out a short, awkward laugh. “Well, I was just wondering. Did you get, ah, the poem yesterday? The one I put in your locker.”

Now Nico’s eyes snap over to his face, and he notices that the tips of Will’s ears are red. He had almost forgotten about that poem. “The Atwood one? Yes, I got it. I wasn’t sure if it was you.”

“Well, it was,” Will says, chuckling to fill up the sudden awkwardness between them. Nico’s hands ache to rub a thumb across Will’s cheek. “I…couldn’t be here yesterday so I decided to drop off something at your locker. I hope that you didn’t think it was creepy.”

Nico thinks back to the phone, unsure of what to say about it. He’s not quite sure of the message that Will had meant by copying down a poem that ended off on such a macabre image. He wants to ask him about what it means, but he doesn’t want to look more inept than he already does.

“It wasn’t creepy,” Nico says slowly. “Unexpected, maybe. I never took you for the poetic type.”

And there he goes again: flitting back and forth between half-flirting and snubbing the other boy. If Nico’s confused by his own behaviour, he’s sure that Will must be completely bewildered. Then again, maybe he doesn’t notice it at all. Nico quickly changes the topic before he can make a greater fool out of himself. “Are you here for the GSA meeting or…what?”

“I invited him,” Piper calls, and Nico remembers that he’s not alone with Will. The thought is startling, and he realizes that he so easily forgets his place when he’s with Will. There’s something both refreshing and dangerous about it.

“Very last minute of you,” Nico observes without malice.

Will offers him a smile that is partially a grimace. “I was busy. I mean I’ve always planned to join… But you know…”

Nico narrows his eyes when he hears this. “What do you mean by ‘always’? Is this something extra to put on your college application?”

The other boy looks taken aback by his words, and Nico regrets them immediately. He opens his mouth, about to apologize for dragging up the whole college excuses once again, but Will vehemently denies it first. “No!” His tone softens a little when Nico takes a subconscious step back. “I mean by the fact that I’ve actually wanted to join.”

“Well, you’ll finally put the straight into GSA,” Nico remarks offhandedly. He pauses and then realizes the enormity of what he just said even though it wouldn’t have come as a surprise. But still. He looks anxiously at the door, hoping that nobody passing by the classroom has heard his words. There’s a reason why he barely hears of people coming out in this school.

He looks back at Will’s expression, but the other boy has a half-smile on his face and doesn’t look at all alarmed by the revelation. “Well, not exactly,” Will says, hesitating and running his hand through his hair. “I thought you knew?”

“The…rumours?” Nico asks, feeling the beat of his heart thump harder and harder against his chest. “I thought they didn’t have credibility.” He’d be lying if he said he wanted Will to agree with him. He suddenly feels hyperaware of his surroundings: the sunlight through the window lighting up Will’s face, Reyna and Piper’s stares burning into his back, their supervisor reading a book at the teacher’s desk and thoroughly ignoring them, the slight tremble in his legs.

“Uh… They’re not…? I mean, those rumours are tall tales.” Will is playing with Nico’s emotions right now, he swears – it’s a rollercoaster that falls and then rises again and again. “But there’s still truth in there; I actually am gay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not sure how I felt about this chapter but I really wanted to finish it. I'll revisit later for fixing up.  
> The poem in this chapter is from Margaret Atwood.


End file.
